My afternoon turned into culinary experimentation yesterday. With a *free* day of no work and no pre-scheduled errands, I had a large window to create a few tasty tidbits for upcoming events. I started with pre-cut cookies in a box to bring to a dinner and charades party at a friend's house. That turned into needing ice cream to make ice cream cookie sandwiches. Once I ate some lunch and finished those two projects, I moved onto rum balls for our soccer-watching get together this weekend. When all was said and done, I was tired.
ICE CREAMWhen my sister gav
e me the ice cream maker for my birthday/Christmas gift, she also gave me the Ben & Jerry's recipe book. I made Jerry's Chocolate to pair with the cookies. Aside from lots of dairy (not so friendly for me), it involves melting chocolate over a (make shift) double boiler before titrating in the remaining ingredients. It's a little time consuming, but melting chocolate slowly can be quite the enjoyable contemplative activity. Once the ingredients are put together, it has to cool in the fridge, leaving a bit of time to: a) bake the cookies and b) eat some lunch. Once it's cool, it's time to throw it in the ice cream maker.
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIESDad brought me th
e cookies in a box to try a while back. French Meadow's idea behind the box was that you can make them one by one and have a hot cookie whenever you want one. It's genius. I decided to make the whole box since I was planning on feeding more than one person. They would have been perfect. When I took them out, they needed like 2 more minutes. And then I forgot about them for about 5. Oh well. The bottoms are a bit dark, but the rest of their GF, CF, SF cookiness is great- crumbly, not too sugary.
RUM BALLSOur theme for World Cup soccer watching (US VS England) is balls. Yes, balls. Meatballs, cheese balls, popcorn balls, and rum balls will all be included. I can count the times I have eaten rum balls on about two fingers. I really didn't know what I was getting into. I used Martha Stewart's recipe. It involved making a brownie (I subbed regular flour for GF flour), then letting it cool. The cooled brownie is crumbed into a mixing bowl and rum is added. What
should happen, per the recipe, is a giant ball should form. No clumping happened for me. Clumpage is essential for forming the balls. I added Karo syrup and a little more rum until the crumbs clumped. Whallah! Balls. We'll see how good they are when they get served cold on Saturday.
been making? There have been so many deals on strawberries, I feel like I will be strawberried out by the end of the summer. I started with raspberry sorbet that I was supposed to take to my BFF's BBQ... but then forgot it... and ate it. I've made two batches of strawberry sorbet, and one strawberry ice cream (which got rave reviews from the wedding shower I brought it to). I took chocolate ice cream to a housewarming as a present for the host. With a pint of strawberries remaining in my fridge post shower ice creamage, I thought I would
attempt something different. I made soft sorbet with a shot of coconut rum (for an added "tropical feel") and froze it in popsicle molds. They are quite tasty. I think next time I will add a dash of something tropical and fruity that has a stronger flavor- the coconut taste seemed so much stronger pre-freeze. My next frozen project (we currently have no freezer space) will be that lemon-basil sorbet I've been dreaming of since our honeymoon and margarita popsicles. :)
