Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Smores Ice Cream

I'm so excited to present to you Yumma Yumma's very first guest blog post. And its by none other than Superking himself; English major, computer genius, and ice cream maker extraordinaire!!  Superking likes to make up his own recipes but we did get a few ideas from another blog, Spache the Spatula.


ah, summertime.  the mild, vernal climates of spring have begun to ebb, and mother nature beckons us to the maternal clutch of her warm embrace.  her calescent similitude and clarion skies are harbingers of all things exuberant, things we so dearly reckon with such a season:  a holiday spent frolicking amongst the heaves of azure sea, scintillating displays of dignified patriotism, midgets in powdered wigs playing backgammon whilst they regale one another with tales of butterscotch pudding and adult diapers.  it is summer.


having noticed it was now June, and because it was over 9000 degrees outside (fahrenheit, kelvin … look, when it's this hot it's irrelevant), AND because my wife bugged me a bunch - it was ice cream time.  but what flavor?  i've done chocolate, peanut butter, honey, strawberry (and a buncha others i can't remember) we scoured the internet looking for something unique - and we found it.  s'mores.  yumma yumma.

this recipe differed a bit from my usual forays into home made ice cream.  this one did NOT use a custard base (no eggs).  SIDENOTE:  yep, raw eggs.  i know.  salmonella, and yellow fever, and in-grown toenails, and AIDS - the government says you will experience all these things if you prepare food using raw eggs.  i guess i've just been lucky so far.

anywho, the Cuisineart mixer/churner was in place and the freezer bowl was -9000 degrees for extreme coldness.  the hardware was in place, but now to prep the ingredients.




first i heated up some heavy cream.  at lot of recipes for ice cream call for milk.  lame.  heavy cream (in nearly all cases) is far superior because fat in food tastes awesome.  don't believe me?  ask your tongue.  the only time i wouldn't use all heavy cream would be if the additional ingredients have a high fat content (e.g., peanut butter).  and even then, it would still taste crazy delish.




once the cream was warm/hot (not lukewarm, but not boiling) i proceeded with the marshmallow infusion.  did i measure anything?  no.  numbers are for accountants and idiot savants.  it took a bit for the marshmallows to melt into the cream but a few minutes of patient stirring ensured proper infusion.  bear in mind that there's oodles of air in the marshmallows and as they meld final-scene-of-Terminator-2-style into the cream, the mixture will wax increasing in volume.  don't panic (or do).




having prepared the base, our classic s'mores flavors were going to be provided by crunched (NOT pulverized) graham crackers and chopped chocolate.  the semi-sweet Ghiradelli bars were the obvious choice, our base being pretty much processed sugar suspended in liquid fat.  milk chocolate in this ingredient would doom any of it's consumers to instant and cataclysmic diabeetus.  

hee hee, just kidding!



only good chocolate please



freezer bowl + churner  + lid = hammertime.  let's churn us some ice cream.




i dumped the base into the churner and let it churn for a good 20 - 30 minutes.  it was fairly warm when i added it, so it didn't really start to thicken until it got chilly willy.  REWIND:  remember the part earlier i mentioned, about how the volume goes crazy mad when you add the marshmallows to the cream?  well, now that it was cool it got way lower.  i arrived at an impasse:  go with the current volume of ice cream (barely a quart), or really quickly heat some additional cream and toss in the remaining marshmallows.  In an almost 1980s movie montage'esque fashion i dumped the remaining cream in a pot, cranked the burner heat to 11, and dumped in the remaining marshmallows.  like a boss.


Superking;s kitchen chaos


once the mixture was sufficiently heated, it joined the already churning base in the churner.  a few minutes later it thickened and the mix-ins joined the battle for culinary glory.  was it pretty?  no.  was it perfectly sanitary?  no.  executing something this epic takes a lot of dirty work.  this is an uphill battle for epicurean superiority.  this is guerilla cooking.  (i was gonna say "this is Sparta", but that whole joke is really played out - i mean, the movie came out in 2006, and even if it was more recent, its relevance to this blog post would be weak at best.  in that pivotal scene, King Leonidas of the Spartans was conversing with an emissary off an encroaching foreign land whose desire was - by negotiation or by force - to seize control of the Spartans' lands and alter their entire system of governance.  i'm only making ice cream.  i hope you see the conundrum i'm faced with here.  perhaps it is best we move on.)



can I lick the freezer bowl?

at about 40'ish minutes in, it was ready.  i pulled the mixing arm, only to realize that i forgot to (beforehand) find an appropriate container.  i tore through the (questionably) organized plastic container cabinet and found a container and matching lid.  i scooped the ice cream into the container.  the few remaining bits of chocolate, and marshmallow, and graham cracker were dumped on top of the gooey concoction and hermetically sealed before placement into the freezer.



it turned out yumma yumma (if i may say).  my wife seemed pleased with it (and refused to share it).  so, i guess we've got a point in the win category on this one.  geez, i can't believe i wrote so much.  really, if you're still reading this - you deserve a ribbon or a medal or something.  i personally woulda said "tl;dr" a while back and bailed.  anyways, go make some ice cream.  enjoy your summer.






6 comments:

  1. this is the worst blog post ever.

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  2. Wow, no booze? Seriously Edgar, tsk tsk! haha. I liked the post! Especially your lack of using capital letters to begin a sentence, very second grade, very rebellious. I love it :) Btw, what do you think would have happened if you used marshmallow fluff instead of marshmallows? Any difference in taste/texture/cooking?

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  3. heh i totally forgot to pickup booze for the recipe. i woulda normally added it so it didn't become rock hard in the freezer, but it just meant we had to let it sit out for a couple minutes before scooping.

    as for my lack of capital letters, it's purely a laziness thing. years of auto-correct/complete have only aided my foray into communicative slothfulness.

    as for fluff, because it all gets melted into the cream i wouldn't imagine it would affect the flavor. although i've never had marshmellow fluff.

    (if you haven't already) when we gonna see TheRedSpoon whip up some ice cream?

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  4. This was a hilariously awesome post to read! I'm glad you guys liked the ice cream!

    (also, I completely get the "over 9000" reference, for the record)

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  5. I'm having trouble with the consistency of the mixture AFTER it suppose to be done. The mixture is still runny and not at all gooey..any advice???

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  6. Anonymous...I'm not exactly sure how you ended up with runny ice cream. When you say "done", do you mean after its churned in the ice cream maker for 30-40 minutes or after its been in the freezer for at least 4 hours? My guess would be maybe you miscalculated the amount of liquid (the original recipe calls for 2 cups whole milk and 3 cups heavy cream; we used all heavy cream 4-5 cups) or the ratio of liquid to marshmallows was off.

    Maybe your freezer bowl for the ice cream maker wasn't cold enough. It should be stored in the freezer and used frozen for best results. Hopefully that helps.

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