Ten homemade ice cream flavours.
Three ice cream machines, two borrowed, one my own.
One freezer. One cook.
One birthday girl.
Happy tasters: too many to count!
Hosting an ice cream party for a large crowd demands careful planning and a pinch of lunacy. Freezer space is helpful. A sick dog ( after accidentally consuming a pound of hamburger meat at the dog sitter) is not.
Sorry you missed the party, Lucy.
I haven’t met anyone yet who doesn’t love a scoop of something cold, creamy and sweet but beyond that, there is no clear favourite. Some love fruit sorbets, others chocolate and caramel. There is always one vanilla bean lover.
Picking out the flavours was a family affair of testing and eliminating.
Nobody complained about that chore.
Here’s one of the flavours we served up: the recipe was adapted from the recipe booklet tucked into the ice cream machine box from Cuisinart.
What you need:
1 1/2 lbs cubes mango ( thawed, if frozen)
1/2 cup mango nectar
2 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup skim powdered milk
8 large egg yolks
1 cup half and half cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
What you do:
Summer sun, summer green, summer bloom, summer food!
The World Cup begins this week so get your game on with food for the fans!
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In 1938, The Salvation Army decided to honour those who served doughnuts to soldiers during the First World War.
National Doughnut Day then began on June 6th and continues today as your best bet for something free and scrumptious.
Contemporary spins on these confections include the doughnut hole, sugary spheres that a certain national coffee chain sells in paper boxes that fit nicely on a car seat.
Road trip season starts about now so why not cook up your own batch?
Food writers often put forth a world divided into lemon dessert lovers and chocolate dessert lovers.
It doesn’t leave much room for the rest of us who love them both, thank you very much.
Spring is the time for lemon lovers to stand up and be counted.
Rhubarb desserts are fitting for the first blush of spring. Those gorgeous flamingo stalks are a relief after a long winter. For a baker, they bring a fresh kiss of colour into the kitchen when apples, pears and other winter staples are getting tiresome. We still have to wait for the summer bounty (stay tuned for an orgy of berry sweets) but if your sweet tooth likes a little tart, then today is your lucky day.
A recent visit to Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works Farmers Market prompted a sweet exploration of syrup.
Why not then douse a delicate applesauce cake in the stuff? There are maple addicts lurking about, needing a fix.
Just call me an enabler.
Spring may be taking her time. That’s just fine. These cold nights and warm days are perfect for making maple syrup.
Wednesday is Hump Day and that means a new sweet recipe posted here weekly for you to try!
Today I bring you a bourbon inspired save-me-from-sleet! cake that will tide you over until the first bulbs pop.
Yes, I said bourbon. If ever a cake screamed late winter, this one is it.
Bourbon is sexy again.Those dudes on Mad Men are to blame.
Menus across North America are popping with fancy new bourbon cocktails and bourbon festivals. You’ll have to wait for the fall for the Toronto Bourbon Week, a fact I find curious: if ever we need a heady distraction, it’s winter in Canada.
But you know me. I don’t wait for festivals. Do-It-Yourself is the way to go with celebrations.
Let’s start with:
Date Cake with Bourbon Glaze (inspired by Barefoot Contessa’s Sticky Toffee Date Cake)
What you will need:
FOR CAKE
FOR GLAZE
What you do:
1. Butter and flour the cake pan.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Place the chopped dates in a pot with 1¾cups of water. Bring to boil, stirring a little to break up the dates. Ignore what it looks like.
4. Stir in the baking soda. Have fun watching it bubble up. Set aside.
5. Cream butter and sugar on medium speed in mixer for 3 minutes until fluffy. Then add eggs, one at a time, mixer on low.
6. Add vanilla and scrape down the mixing bowl.
7. Combine the flour and salt. Add slowly to the batter ( again keep the mixer on low).
8. Add the hot date mixture in two batches to the batter, scraping down the bowl and keeping the mixer on low.
9. Stir in baking powder, again watching it bubble up.
10. Pour into the prepared cake pan.
11. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
12. While the cake is baking, make the glaze. Combine butter, brown sugar, cream and salt in a saucepan and bring to boil.
13. Reduce the heat and simmer for 2 minutes.
14. Taking pot off the heat, stir in the bourbon and vanilla. Pour into a 2 cup glass measuring cup.
15. As soon as the cake is out of the oven, poke holes all over it with a toothpick.
16. Pour a quarter of the sauce over the cake and allow it to soak into the cake for 15 minutes. Then pour another quarter of sauce onto the cake and let it sit for another 15 minutes.
17. Flip cake over ( bottom side up) on to a plate set over a drying rack on a baking sheet. Pour the rest of the sauce over the cake. The sauce will drip over sides -you can scoop up later.
18. When the cake is completely cool, scrape whatever has dripped onto the baking sheet and pour on top or reheat and use as a sauce. Carefully transfer to a serving plate.
19. Serve at room temperature with one small dollop of barely sweetened whipping cream.
Enjoy a sophisticated slice and stare down Winter’s more often than not indecent assault.
Invite your friends in and have your very own bourbon festival.
For more Hump Day recipes, see
The sweetest kiss
World Nutella Day
Prep the elves
Scones-R-Us
Dulce Cake
Picnic Peach Cake
FOODIE ALERT: Tonight I’m off to the Bell Lightbox for the kick-off to TIFF’s exciting FOOD ON FILM series. See you there.
