Pumpkin Ice Cream Sandwiches

Thanksgiving has long since come and gone for us here in Canadaland, and usually, I'm not much of a pumpkin enthusiast outside of that holiday. But, toward the end of October, my husband's parents and brother made the leap across the pond from England, and it seemed like a good idea to have a Thanksgiving dinner with them.

As they'd never tried pumpkin as a dessert ingredient before, I opted to forgo the pumpkin pie (honestly, I think it's an acquired taste) and did my pumpkin angel food cake with salted cinnamon caramel instead. But, this left me with half a can of leftover pumpkin puree, and, like I said, I'm not much of a pumpkin enthusiast.

The story could have ended with the leftover puree in the green bin, but I feel guilty every time I throw ingredients away! So, I was determined to find some use for the pumpkin, and preferably something easy that I could do while Audrey was napping.

After perusing several recipes, I settled on making a batch of spice infused pumpkin ice cream. And, what better use for ice cream than putting it into sandwich form?

I adapted a Cooking Light recipe for my purposes. You can choose to use low and non-fat dairy products here, or you can do what I did and fatten the thing up. Or go half and half and use what you've got on hand.

Whatever you choose, it's going to be totally delicious.

Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream

Adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients

1½ cups milk, divided
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch salt
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tbsp bourbon
1 cup sour cream

Directions

1. Combine 1 cup of the milk with the brown sugar in a saucepan and heat until 180º, or until tiny bubbles form around the edges. Do NOT bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

2. Place egg yolks in a bowl and whisk lightly. Slowly add hot milk mixture to egg yolks, whisking constantly. Return mixture to pan and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove your newly made custard from heat and strain through a fine mesh sieve into a medium bowl. Discard any solids left behind in the sieve.

3. In a medium bowl, mix together the remaining ½ cup of milk, the sweetened condensed milk, the vanilla, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and salt. Stir in pumpkin and then gradually whisk in the custard. Cover and chill for at least 8 hours to allow the flavours to come together.

4. Combine ½ cup of the pumpkin custard mixture with the sour cream. Add back into the chilled pumpkin mixture and stir well until combined. Pour into the canister of an ice cream machine and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions.

5. Once finished, spoon ice cream into a freezer safe container and freeze 1 hour or until firm.

So that's the hard part! The easy part is assembling the sandwiches. I used oatmeal cookies and sandwiched a couple tablespoons of the ice cream (which I'd softened on the counter for 30 minutes) in the middle. Soooo good! If you have soft oatmeal cookies, I think those would be the best option. I was lazy and just bought some boxed crisp oatmeal cookies.

Pumpkin Angel Food Cake with Salted Cinnamon Caramel

One of the challenges of cooking at the cottage is we don't have access to clean running water. Each weekend, we lug up three gigantic blue jugs and use that water to wash our dishes, fruits and vegetables.

And that has a huge impact on what we make up there. There's a limited amount of dishes we want to get dirty, because we can only do a limited number of dishes.

I don't know what Thanksgiving looks like at your house, but at ours, it's mess-tastic.

So, when we're at the cottage, it's often easier to turn to recipes that involve pre-packaged ingredients. It's not something I usually do at home; but up there, it's the sensible thing to do.

Thankfully, there are amazing recipes out there that turn packaged mixes into home-cooked delights.

This recipe comes from Grin and Bake It, and was a total hit. Angel food cakes and my family go way back. When I was a teen, I'd always ask for my birthday cake to be an angel food cake covered with whipped cream that had been mixed with crushed up Crispy Crunch Bars.

Be still my beating heart.

So, there was a big cheer when we brought angel food cake back into the fold this Thanksgiving. As I cut it at the table, it was universally declared to "wobble seductively".

Who doesn't love a good seductive wobble?

Pumpkin Angel Food Cake with Salted Cinnamon Caramel


(source)



Ingredients


1 package angel food cake mix
1 tbsp.  all-purpose flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cloves
¾ cup canned pure pumpkin
1 cup cold water


¼ cup butter, salted
¼ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ cup whipping cream
¼  tsp. sea salt
2 tsp. cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Place all cake ingredients (food cake mix through water) in a bowl and beat with a hand held mixer for one minute. Pour into an angel food cake tin and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until cake is browned and bounces back when lightly poked. Remove from oven and place upside down on the neck of a glass bottle. You'll do this because you don't want the cake to fall at all. Let cool for at least 2 hours.

2. To make the glaze, heat butter with sugars in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then stir in cream. Bring back to a boil and let cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir in cinnamon and sea salt. Let cool to room temperature before pouring over top of cake.

Might I recommend some whipped cream on the side?

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad and a Cottage Saturday

Part of the annual Thanksgiving weekend tradition involves all the people on the street taking the docks out of the water. There's a lot less enthusiasm for this activity (versus putting them in on the Victoria Day long weekend), mostly because the water is so much colder. 

Dad walking down the street wearing hip-waiters.

I see my role, as official photographer, to be a pretty damn important one.

The beach, with more than half of the dock gone.

You see, there are dogs that need portraits done.

Promptly after running into the water.

And... well... do you want to go swimming at Thanksgiving?

Yar. Look at that strength!

After everything at the beach seemed under control, Jenn and I took a walk down towards Snake Creek.

More milkweed pods!

And, you know, because we were tired after that, we sat around reading at the cottage.

The living room

Phil and I took a quick walk before dinner just up and down River Road.

River Road at Murray Hill

I love autumn up here. I swear, no one does autumn like Ottawa-Gatineau.

View from another beach.

And what would the cottage be without eating? Nothing, I tells you.

Yum!

See the plaid shirt I'm wearing? I wore it practically every day in grade 8 (it was the grunge era). Now I reserve it for fall at the cottage, where it's kept permanently!

We're eating a poorly plated, but totally delicious Roasted Butternut Squash Salad recipe. I swear, it's the best dish ever.

Well. best dish for fall anyway.

Roasted squash, red onions, bacon, melted goat cheese, walnuts, maple... this salad has a whole lot of awesome goin' on!

Where were you this weekend?

I was here:

View from the steps of the little cottage at 8:30 this morning.

Sure, the little cottage was 2º at night, but that's what 6 layers of blankets and flannel sheets are for! Really, it was a great weekend. I got to hang out with my family (albeit, with a seriously drugged brother who has a tooth infection), play tons of games and enjoy some beautiful walks.

The colours this weekend were just gorgeous!

Our maple tree

I'll post more later, but I'll leave you with one last shot of my cousin Jenn:

Milkweed pods take flight

Hope all my Canadian friends had a great Thanksgiving!