It's Gonna Be Another One of Those Hot Summers

A second year of blogging deserves a new kitchen toy… like an electric ice cream maker! I have nothing against my old ice cream maker, (his name is Alastair) he was good to me, but it was time for him to retire. Alastair has worked hard all of his life, churning out almost 20 years of ice cream and it was time for him to enjoy retirement. Hasta luego Alastair, enter the Ice-Man. He’s sleek, shiny, powerful and makes a mean ice cream. What more could you ask for? For my first date with the Ice-Man we made Murphy’s Kahlua Espresso Ice Cream with Chocolate Shavings from Ice Cream Ireland. All it took was one velvety spoonful to cross my lips for me to know that the Ice-Man and I were going to get along very, very well. He does all of the work, churning round and around and I reap the rewards. He’s everything a life sponsor should be.

Not one to waste anytime, our second date happened the very next day. I had a ripe mango on the counter and fresh strawberries from the market, so a mango-strawberry ice cream, (with a little coconut rum) was a no-brainer. I wasn’t disappointed here either. I can’t wait for more fruit to come into season so I can ice cream-ify it too! This summer is going to be chockfull of frozen treats because I will never tire of them. This isn’t an infatuation stage, it’s the real deal. I love ice cream. I used to work in an ice cream store during the summer and people would always come in and say “you must be sick of ice cream after working here.” But I never was. I would go into work for a 12 hour shift and eat ice cream All. Day. Long. If I tired of one flavour, there were 49 others to tide me over.

Brilynn’s Strawberry Mango Ice Cream

1 ½ cups milk

1 ½ cups whipping cream

Generous ½ cup sugar

4 egg yolks

Scant quart of strawberries

1 ripe mango

¼ cup Malibu rum

Bring milk and cream to a simmer in a sauce pan. In another saucepan, off the stove, whisk together egg yolks and sugar until fully combined and pale yellow in colour. Drizzle in some of the milk and cream, while whisking, to temper the eggs. Slowly pour in the rest of the milk and cream while continuing to whisk. Place this sauce pan back on the stove and heat until a thermometer registers 70C, do not surpass 75C as the eggs will scramble. Remove from the heat, pour into a bowl and place the bowl into a dish of ice and water, whisking to cool the mixture down.

While that cools, hull the strawberries and peel and chop the mango. Put the fruit in your blender, (get a K-Tec!!!) and pour in ¼ cup Malibu. Puree.

Pour the fruit mixture into the cooled cream mixture and stir to combine. Place in the fridge to chill completely before pouring into your ice cream maker.

This last picture is of a chocolate-pistachio bundt cake that I made for one of the guys at work. Not only did I have to come up with a recipe, but I was also given specific colours for the icing. You would think that after all this hard work on my part, the recipient of the cake would at least show up to collect his goods. Matt called in “sick” that day and missed it completely. He claims he thought that it was the following week that I was bringing in the cake but that’s just silliness because I won’t be there then. So why was I even making Matt a cake in the first place? It started because I’ve been bringing baked goods into work lately since it gives me an outlet for my baking, (other than my mouth) and it means the people at work are nice to me because I bring them treats. It’s a win-win situation. Usually I bring in whatever I feel like making on that particular day, but since I like to make people happy, I started taking requests too, (I saw them as mini challenges). My first request was for a coffee cake, (for which I made Dorie’s Cardamom Coffee cake) the second came from Matt and was for a chocolate-pistachio bundt cake. He’d only ever had it once but liked it so much that he ate the whole thing. He described what he wanted and I set out to find a recipe that would fulfill the requirements. I based my cake on Dorie’s recipe for Nutty, Chocolaty, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake but, among other variations, I increased the chocolate, added some cream and used pistachios in my swirl. I baked it up into an adorable individual bundt cake, personalized and everything and Matt had the nerve not to show up for work on the day I brought it in. The others enjoyed his cake for him and Matt’s name has now dropped to the bottom of the queue and he won’t be allowed to make requests for a little while. Let this be a lesson: If I bake for you, you’d better be there to eat!

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Ice Cream + Mango + Strawberry