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.

Happy Birthday to my husband!

Holy sweet mother of all things good. I have two magical, amazing words for you:

Baked.

Alaska.

Let them roll off your tongue and then send your imagination off to soaring heights as you ponder this retro dessert.

It's frozen on the inside.

It's crispy meringue on the outside.

Basically, it's heaven on a plate.

Why have I never tried this before?

When Phil saw me looking through the most recent issue of Martha Stewart Living, he caught me on a page with this picture:

marthastewart.com

He got all puppy-dog eyed and pleaded for me to make it for his birthday. Since he'd done such an amazing job with those molten chocolate cakes for me, it was only fair that I did the cake he wanted in return.

I won't lie to you. I had doubts. A 500º oven and ice cream? No way was the meringue that insulating. I was going to end up with a melted disaster all over the kitchen.

I was wrong. It was easy. It was delicious. We have tons of leftovers. Wanna come 'round and try?

For the record, I divided this recipe in 3, in hopes of making a 2-3 person serving, and made it in my 3 cup pudding bowl.

It still made 6 servings. Go figure.

So, I'm posting the original recipe here.

Baked Alaska with Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Ice Cream

(from Martha Stewart Living)

Ingredients

 
For the cakes:
2 cups sugar
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
Salt
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup warm water (about 100 degrees)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
6 large eggs, room temperature, separated
 
For assembling:
Vegetable oil cooking spray
6 cups chocolate ice cream (3 pints)
 
For the meringue:
12 large egg whites, room temperature
3 cups sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make the cakes: Sift 1 1/3 cups sugar, the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and 1 teaspoon salt into a bowl. Combine oil, water, and vanilla.

Whisk egg yolks with a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and thick, about 5 minutes. With machine running, slowly pour oil mixture into yolks, and then add sugar mixture.
 

In a clean mixer bowl, whisk egg whites on medium-high speed, gradually adding remaining 2/3 cup sugar, until medium stiff peaks form. Mix one-third of the whites into cake batter, then gently fold in remaining whites.
 

Divide batter between two 12-by-17-inch parchment-lined rimmed baking sheets, and spread evenly using an offset spatula. Bake until cakes are set and spring back when touched, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool.
 

Assemble the baked Alaska: Coat six 11-ounce bowls or ramekins with cooking spray; line with plastic wrap, leaving an overhang. Cut out 6 cake circles to fit in bottoms of bowls (we used a 2 1/2-inch round cookie cutter), and place one in each bowl. Top each with 1/3 cup chocolate ice cream, smoothing surface. Cut out 6 cake circles to fit on top of ice cream (we used a 3 1/2-inch round cookie cutter), and place on ice cream. 

Freeze until set, about 30 minutes.
 

Top each cake with 1/3 cup ice cream, smoothing surface. Cut out 6 cake circles to fit on top of ice cream (we used a 4-inch round cookie cutter), and place on ice cream. (This should fit just at the top of the bowl.) Cover assembled cakes with plastic wrap overhang, and freeze for at least 4 hours.
 

To remove from bowls, open plastic wrap, flip cakes onto a baking sheet, and remove plastic wrap. Freeze cakes while making meringue.
 

 

 

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Make the meringue: Heat egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar in a heatproof bowl of a mixer set over a pan of simmering water, whisking often, until sugar dissolves and mixture is warm to the touch, about 2 minutes. Transfer bowl to mixer, and whisk until stiff peaks form, about 10 minutes. 

 

Cover each assembled cake with 1 cup meringue. This is the fun part, if you ask me. Get your fingers in there and make some peaks!

Bake until meringue is browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Alternatively, hold a small handheld kitchen torch at a 90-degree angle 3 to 4 inches from surface of meringue. Move flame back and forth until browned and caramelized.

 

 

This is a rich dessert, so cut it into appropriate serving sizes!

Try to restrain yourself from eating the leftovers.

Happy birthday babe!

Beer Ice Cream

It's basically ice cream. Except, with beer.

Okay, so for this recipe, you'll need an ice cream machine. Buy yourself a cheap one. It's worth it for this recipe alone! I've adapted this recipe from the Beerbistro cookbook.

Ingredients

1¼ cups whipping cream
5 egg yolks
½ cup granulated sugar (approximately - I used about 2.5 oz)
½ cup + 2 tbsp beer* (see note)
5 skor bars, crushed

**note** You cannot just use any old beer here. If you use a Keith's or Budweiser, you might as well just throw the whole recipe in the garbage. You need something like a stout, with a sweet, almost banana-y profile. A doppelbock would be perfect here. I used Aventinus Weizen Eisbock. In spite of that being an extra strong beer (12%), the ice cream set perfectly.

Directions

In a bowl, whisk together egg yolks and sugar. They should go from bright yellow to a pale yellow as you whisk them.

Before

After

See? Different colour. Now, set those aside, while you pour the cream into the saucepan and heat over medium high heat until boiling.

Whisking constantly, slowly pour the hot cream into the egg mixture. You HAVE to do this slowly. If you don't, you'll end up with scrambled eggs. 

Return the mixture to the pan and, stirring constantly, heat until it's thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.

Remove from heat and stir in beer. 

Now, according to my ice cream maker's directions, you're supposed to put the whole thing the fridge to cool before adding it to the ice cream machine.

I'm an impatient person. I dumped the whole thing in still warm and let the machine go to work.

It took about a ½ hour for the ice cream to set up to about a soft serve consistency. At this point, turn off the machine (taste for awesomeness) and dump in the skor bits.

YUM. I was so impatient, I didn't even bother to get better light for this shot!

Stir together until the chocolate is incorporated into the mixture, but do it quickly! You don't want it to melt!

Dump the whole thing in a container, and put in the freezer for 3 hours to firm up. Because of the alcohol content, this won't be as solid as a regular ice cream.

That's right, beer & skor ice cream

Eat and be amazed. Serves... well... I guess that depends. I'd say it makes enough for 6-8 small servings. This is quite rich, so you don't need tons of it.