Cherry Cheesecake Ice Cream

A few weeks ago, my friend and I went to one of the Talking Taste presentations at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. It's an annual series where local chefs do a talk and cooking demonstration at the museum. You can get an adult beverage from the bar, and have a local chef make you snacky bits while you sip sangria and watch, overlooking Boston Harbor. It is the height of "adult fun".


The presentation by  Tse Wei Lim and Diana Kudajarova  from Journeyman restaurant focused on ice cream. They talked a lot about the different ratio's for making ice cream, sherbet, sorbet, and gelato. They served an arrugula ice cream (and you thought beet was odd), peach ice cream, and blueberry sorbet. 


In a custard based ice cream, you should have 2-11% fat, 15-30% non-fat solids, 15-23% sugar, with egg yolks comprising 7-9% of the base and the rest being liquid.


In a Philadelphia style ice cream base, there should be 7-11% fat, 24-30% non-fat solids, 16-23% sugar, the rest being liquid.


sorbet is 20-60% fruit juice or puree, 25-32% sugar, and the rest should be liquid.


The ice cream I made is a Philadelphia style, made with philly cream cheese (well, Neufchatel to be precise). I got this recipe from a Philly Cream Cheese ad in Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine.


Ingredients
1 8oz pkg cream cheese or neufchatel cheese
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup whipping cream (I didn't have any on hand so I used half plain yogurt and half milk and it turned out fine)
2 tsp lemon zest (I just zested a whole lemon)
1 1/2 cups fruit cut up bite sized (the ad used strawberries, I used cherries)


Instructions
Combine the cheese, condensed milk, whipping cream/yogurt, and lemon zest in a mixer until smooth. Then add fruit and put in the fridge to cool (the colder your mix is before you put it in the ice cream maker, the better)
Churn in your ice cream maker according to directions.
NOM


The add also included chopped graham crackers, but I chose to omit them

Cream Cheese Stuffed Carrot Cake Muffins

We had some carrots from our farmshare, and I have had a hankering for carrot cake muffins for FOREVER, so I finally decided since it was a bit cooler out, that today was the perfect day for it.

I love carrot cake frosted with cream cheese frosting, but they're difficult to travel with because the frosting can be messy, especially when it's hot out. These bring the frosting, without the mess.

Taken from the King Arthur Flour website

filling

• one 8-ounce package cream cheese or Neufchâtel cheese
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• a few drops of Fiori di Sicilia flavor, optional but very tasty

muffins

• 2 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup grated carrots, lightly packed; about 2 medium-large carrots
• (I added a half cup of chopped pecans and a half cup chopped dates, tossed with a quarter cup flour)

Directions

• 1) Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a standard 12-well muffin pan. Or line the pan with paper muffin cups, and grease the cups.
  2) To make the filling: Place the cream cheese in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat on low power for 40 seconds. Stir in the sugar and flavor. Set aside.
  3) To make the muffin batter: In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
  4) In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, water, and oil.
  5) Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
  6) Fold in the grated carrots, stirring to combine.
  7) Drop about 2 tablespoons of the batter (a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here) into each muffin cup, spreading it to cover the bottom.
  8) Dollop on a heaping tablespoon of filling; a level tablespoon cookie scoop works well here.
  9) Cover with enough batter to fill the muffin cups quite full. The batter will come to within about 1/4" to 3/8" of the top of each muffin cup. But don't try to use all the batter; unless you have particularly deep cups, you'll have abut 1/3 cup batter left over. Bake it in a separate custard cup, if desired.
  10) Bake the muffins until a toothpick inserted into the cake part of one (not into the cream cheese filling) comes out clean, about 20 minutes. The tops of the muffins will feel firm to the touch.
  11) Remove the muffins from the oven, and as soon as you're able to handle them, transfer them to a rack. If you serve the muffins warm, the filling will be molten. If you wait for them to cool, it'll firm up.

Pizzucchini!

Its that time of year again...time for lots of zucchini in the farmshare. I found this recipe on Martha Stewart's website, and I have to give it a big thumbs up! It is easy and tasty.

Preheat the oven to 400
Cut zucchini in half and scoop out the seeds
Season the cavity with salt and pepper
Dice 1 roma tomato per zucchini half
Toss with a tbsp balsamic vinegar
Chopped fresh oregano to taste
Chopped garlic clove (optional)
Fill the zucchini with tomato mixture
Bake for 20 min, until zucchini softens
Top with mozzerella and broil until cheese melts

Cherry Sour Cream Coffee Cake

I love summer cherries, and they are wicked cheap at Haymarket, so I've been doing all sorts of things with them. I thought cherry coffee cake would be particularly appropriate for Independence Day, so I made this (picture will post later)

Made Cherry coffee cake this morning:


1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream

... 1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup almond flour (or just do 2 cups flour)

1tsp baking powder

1tsp baking soda

1 tbsp lemon zest

1 tsp almond extract 1/4 cup cherry preserves

1 1/2 cup pitted fresh cherries



cream butter and sugar, add eggs and rest of wet ingredients (except cherries and preserves)

sift and gradually add dry ingredients

Stir preserves in by hand and pour into baking pan

top with pitted cherries



Optional Crumb Topping

1 stick butter

3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup oatmeal

1 cup brown sugar



Cut butter into dry ingredients until pea sized crumbs, then sprinkle on top of coffee cake



bake at 350 for half an hour