Darienne

In the last few days I have made DL's Buttercrunch Toffee in vanilla, Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream, and yesterday, the Aztec 'Hot' Chocolate Ice Cream. I'd already made the 'Hot' Chocolate twice, but using canned chipotles in adobo sauce. This time I had ground Chipotle powder. Now keeping in mind that I live in the frozen north and am growing my first crop of jalapenos this year...I don't have all that much experience with chiles. So when DL said...use the smaller amount of chile powder in the ice cream unless you know the strength of your chile powder. So I don't know how I would go about 'knowing' the strength of the powder and put in 2 instead of 3 TBSP. It's hot. Way hot. Way hot enough. Maybe even too way hot enough. But delicious. Also made my first cajeta, in the oven in a foil-covered dish set in a bain marie...no chance of exploding cans...following a recipe by his nibs DL which is online and he adapted from his own recipe in the Perfect Scoop. The only dulce de leche we can get in my small town is made by La Paila (Argentina) or Hershey and I have tasted the Argentinian one and find it too sweet to bear. Mine was very nice, if I do say so myself. I'm going to try the real McCoy when we get to Moab. Next for DL's Raspberry Ice Cream...

I am a total novice at making Mexican food, but my favorite cookbook, purchased in 1967 and falling apart, is The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz. I also have Rick Bayless, the Mexican Kitchen.

Gosh, I have that book too. Now you have galvanized me into action, LindaK. I bought it mainly for the gelato and sorbet recipes and have tried a couple. A severe case of too many cookbooks purchased at once.

Thank you for this post. I'm going to make sure Mr. Casual, my DH, reads it. I am paranoid about food going bad and now I feel a bit more vindicated.

I'm in. For one thing, I promised ElsieD that if she went, I would go. Do give me some sort of job to do, Kerry.

Gotcha!

Fascinating little video. What a delight to watch a professional do his thing. How on earth does that bunch of steel bits and bobs turn out a cruller? I love crullers. The bakery in the Kroger's in Moab has little to recommend it, but this incredible bakery where the croissants are to die for. Lots of Europeans visit Moab and stop by the Kroger's to pick up a lunch to take out into the wilderness of various kings.

In Moab, Utah, at the Multicultural Center, the kids call me the Candy Lady because I make various kinds of lollipops and candies for them. That makes me feel very good. :wub: We are heading back to Moab at the end of September. Yay!!!

OK. Looked them both up and the semi-freddo apparently is 'half cold'. Is a chiboust also cold? Semi-freddo is Italian. While chiboust is French.

Interesting thread. I really have no concept of a 'Semi-freddo' at this point but make a frozen dessert that might qualify. Research is called for. As for the 'heavy' French style custard ice creams...why make them in this style only? Try making the Philadelphia style ice cream or even ice cream with a corn starch base and no heavy cream even. Much lighter...but still acceptable to me. Fewer calories, less expensive, less 'heavy' eggy taste, more showcasing of the flavor, etc. What more could you ask for?

Hi Ruth, Could you explain what this means, please? Sorry, somehow I can't figure it out. Good ideas about breaking. Will try it next. The brownie pans satisfy my lazy instincts.

Yes, I have. Friends think that because I work with chocolate that I am a chocoholic. Well, I do like chocolate, but I am in no way a 'chocoholic'. And of course, gifts are often then chocolate...unfortunately chocolate that I, the non-chocoholic, would not want to eat. Oh well...if that's the worst thing that ever happens...

Confectionery partner, Barbara, and I have two of those Perfect Brownie pans and make our toffee pieces in them. They work really well. Hokey looking...but they work nicely. ps. The Perfect Brownie pan has 18 divisions to its grid.

Omi. That looks SOOO good.

We are talking nearly two weeks for ice cream #1 and as noted, I'll report back. Thanks.

Hi Paul, Thanks for your answer. Actually the ice cream has lasted well over a week at the house. I give a lot of it away (you know, bribes, thank you's, apologies, etc.) and Ed and I don't eat a lot of it. If I ate everything I made... Usually the ice cream is moved to the upper freezer for serving purposes, but of course the upper freezer is much smaller and already packed with the often used bits and bobs. I think I'll move a lot of the stuff out of it to the cellar freezer, so I can store more ice creams in it for the weekend. I shall make #1 today and then report back how it works out vis-a-vis storage for two weeks. An experiment. DL's Vietnamese coffee ice cream...minor alterations: a tad less than the prescribed amount of condensed milk (can holds only 300 ml = 1 1/5 cups); slightly more half & half, finely chopped cacao nibs and 2 T of Panama Jack. Well, that's not too minor is it? As always, thanks.

Good idea. Not a problem.

We've this weekend thing coming up starting on August 26th and I am starting to make baked and cooked items ahead of time and freezing them. Some stuff is no problem. But ice cream...ah... First of all, I can make only one container a day with my little ICE-20 Cuisinart maker. Secondly, I'm not making stuff while folks are here. And I need to make at least 5 kinds. My downstairs freezer is -33 degrees C in the center of the frozen ice cream container bowl. That's the 'colder' side of the freezer. Otherwise it varies and I can't figure out what is meaningful about getting all different temperatures here and there. (My fridge freezer goes from -10 to -18 degrees C. Warmer than the cellar freezer. Both are fine with my ice creams in the past.) I have had few problems with ice cream since the help I received from my ice cream mentors, Paul Raphael and Jon. I make mostly cornstarch-based ice creams. I'll cover the ice cream with plastic wrap in an air-tight plastic container, put it in the cold side and NOT open it until it is time to serve. The freezer is a chest freezer and not subject to constant opening. How many days do you figure I can start before hand. (I am already committed to making, assembling and wrapping the ice cream sandwiches on Aug 21 & 22.) Thanks.

Exquisite. And I looked it up. Swiss Meringue Butter Cream.

Not exactly exciting, but it is what I am doing. Getting ready for the annual Dog Weekend at the farm starting on the 26th (long weekend), making muffins and little loaves for breakfasts and snacks, all to be frozen immediately. Poppy seed muffins with that incredible recipe by Pastrygirl which takes one cup...YES ONE CUP...of poppy seeds instead of 2 or 3 dinky tablespoons, blueberry muffins - a recipe given to me by Calipoutine last year, and some teeny tiny corn muffins...just trying out a new pan given to me by my confectionery partner, Barbara. It's called a Big Daddio.

Where do you get squash blossoms? In a grocery store? Outdoor market? Do they have a short or long season? Are they expensive? We're off to Utah again soon, and I've never seen a squash blossom in the local Kroger's, but then I didn't look. Not sure of the local Hispanic population. Certainly no Hispanic grocery stores.

Learn something new everyday. Found two answers to supreming: - one cuts away the membranes - the other cuts away the membranes and the flesh near the membranes. Yes?

Fascinating!

All good ideas and this one is a beauty. I'll ask. That would make it possible to store it near home instead of at the home of the decorator. If you would like the recipe, just pm or email me. It is one delicious cake. The filling is to die for with a whole orange in it. None of this 2 TBSP of orange juice stuff. And I'll use Gran Marnier in it. But then we'll be drinking Margaritas anyway with our Mexican (read Tex/Cal/Mex) luncheon. Anyone who wants to come is invited. You need only to be a dog person, even one currently without a dog.

For the DH's 70th and our 50th I am making his favorite cake but I have serious storage and time problems. I have to make it as far ahead of time as I can. I can freeze the chocolate cake layers, but what about the filling? And what about the ganache topping which a friend has offered to decorate with words of wisdom or some such thing. We'll have a large gang of dogs and their humans here for the weekend and I can't make the cake at the last minute, or the filling or anything. And I'll not have enough room to store it anywhere in a fridge and there is no coolth anywhere to be found...unless we have some weird cold wave. A friend has offered to keep it in her fridge and bring it at the luncheon. Can I freeze the filling? How far ahead of serving can I make it and keep it? How far ahead of serving can I fill the cake? How far ahead of serving can I make the ganache? Assemble the entire cake? Etc. OK. Cake is three jelly-roll thicknesses of chocolate cake. The filling is: cream cheese, whipping cream; fresh whole orange, orange zest, sugar, orange juice and orange liqueur. The ganache is bittersweet chocolate and whipping cream. All help is appreciated. skip the doodads and enlarge the cake times three.