daring bakers: piece montée (croquembouche)

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

This was my favorite DB challenge so far. I've been meaning to make cream puffs for quite a while now, but I've been too intimidated. And croquembouches sounded even more fun, and even more intimidating, than regular cream puffs. Thanks to Cat, I've conquered my fear of choux pastry. The recipes she provided were easy to follow and the results were delicious. For eating out of hand, I prefer the vanilla pastry cream. But for the actual cream puffs, the chocolate pastry cream won, no contest. Everyone who tried them preferred it. Unfortunately, I was the only one who liked the croquembouche. Or perhaps not so unfortunate, as it left more for me. I love the feel of the caramel coating cracking in my teeth.

The pastry cream and the choux pastry were simple to make, but I'll need more practice to get my pastries a consistent size and shape. And to be able to assemble a piece montée without burning my fingers or having the finished dessert come out lopsided.

Anyway, we all loved these. I ended up making a whole batch of both the chocolate and vanilla creams and two batches of the puffs. One just wasn't enough. And my son particularly loved the cream puffs. They were just the right size for his hands. I don't have any of Nick Malgieri's cookbooks yet, but that's going to have to change after trying these. Thanks to Cat for such a great pick.



cream puffs

vanilla crème patissiere (half batch)
1 C whole milk
2 TB cornstarch
6 TB sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
2 TB unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla

Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.

Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.

Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.

Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.

Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

chocolate pastry cream (half batch)
Bring ¼ cup milk to a boil in a small pan; remove from heat and add in 3 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped, and mix until smooth. Whisk into pastry cream when you add the butter and vanilla.

pate a choux (yield: about 28)
¾ cup water
6 TB unsalted butter
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 C all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

egg wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt

Pre-heat oven to 425 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:
Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.

Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny. As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes. It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.

Piping:
Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip. Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high and about 1 inch wide.

Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Bake the choux at 425 F until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.

Lower the temperature to 350 F and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool. They can be stored in a airtight box overnight.

Filling:
When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.

Use one of these to top your choux and assemble your piece montée.

chocolate glaze
8 ounces/200 g. finely chopped chocolate (use the finest quality you can afford as the taste will be quite pronounced; I recommend semi-sweet)

Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Stir at regular intervals to avoid burning. Use the best quality chocolate you can afford. Use immediately.

hard caramel glaze:
1 cup (225 g.) sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand. Place on medium heat; heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and the center begins to smoke. Begin to stir sugar. Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber color. Remove from heat immediately; place bottom of pan in ice water to stop the cooking. Use immediately.

assembling your piece montée:
You may want to lay out your unfilled, unglazed choux in a practice design to get a feel for how to assemble the final dessert. For example, if making a conical shape, trace a circle (no bigger than 8 inches) on a piece of parchment to use as a pattern. Then take some of the larger choux and assemble them in the circle for the bottom layer. Practice seeing which pieces fit together best.

Once you are ready to assemble your piece montée, dip the top of each choux in your glaze (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up.

paneer with spinach and simple pilaf

B and I love Indian food. Well, we love almost any kind of food. But Indian is one of our absolute favorites. I've tried to cook Indian food in the past, but the results have been nothing like the wonderful things we eat when we go out. Toasting and grinding spices is a lot of work for a meal that tastes terrible. So I haven't tried to make Indian for a few years. But I found Anjum Anand's Indian Food Made Easy on sale at the bookstore a while ago and when I read her description of her food as not being for purists, I thought this was something I could handle.

The first thing I made was saag paneer, which she calls "paneer with spinach." I served it with her simple pilaf. The saag paneer is my new favorite. I like hers better than any of the ones at the local restaurants--it has a lovely, bright flavor. And true to her title, it was very easy to make.

The recipe makes a rather small batch, so I always at least double it. I've since had a bit of trouble making the paneer successfully, but it has worked when I've used yogurt with a bit of lemon juice, so that's how I'll make it from here on. I used ghee instead of oil to cook in, and I throw a pinch of asafoetida in the cooking oil (on the recommendation of the former chef who owns the Indian spice shop I go to). There's really nothing more to say about this--a little blanching, a little chopping, a little frying, and you've got dinner. Couldn't be easier.

paneer with spinach and simple pilaf (from Indian Food Made Easy, by Anjum Anand)

paneer
4 C whole milk
7/8-1 C fresh yogurt or 2 TB lemon juice

Bring the milk to a boil in a heavy-based saucepan. once the milk starts to biol and rise up, stir in 7/8 C of the yogurt or all the lemon juice. Keeping the milk on heat, stir gently to help the milk curdle--this should take only a minute or so. If it does not separate, add the rest of the yogurt (if using) and keep stirring. The curds will coagulate and separate from the watery whey. Remove from the heat.

Line a large strainer with muslin or cheesecloth, and palce it over a large bowl or saucepan. Pour the cheese into the lined strainer and run some cold water through it. Wrap the cheese in the cloth, and hang it from the faucet over the sink to allow the excess water to drain for 10 minutes. Then, keeping it fairly tightly wrapped, place on your work surface with a heavy weight on top (I refill the same saucepan with the whey or water and palce it on top) for 30-40 minutes or until it is flattened into a firm block. Then cut into cubes or crumble, depending on how you want to use it.

Store any unused pieces of paneer in the refrigerator in water in a covered container. You can alos freeze it in an airtight container. Defrost thoroughly before use.



paneer with spinach
7 C baby spinach leaves, washed
3 TB veg. oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2" fresh ginger, sliced into long julienne strips
1.5 TB chopped garlic
1-2 green chilies, left whole
2 tsp ground coriander
salt, to taste
4 C milk, made into around 9 oz paneer with fresh yogurt
1/2-1 tsp garam masala, depending on quality
3/8 C whole milk or 4 TB heavy cream
1-2 tsp lemon juice, or to taste

Blanch the spinach leaves in hot water for 3 minutes or until well wilted. Drain into a colander and run under cold water until they cool. Blend to a smooth paste and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large nonstick pan. Add the cumin seeds and fry for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the onion and fry over a mild heat for about 5 minutes or until soft. add the ginger, garlic, and chilies, and cook for 1 minute. Add the ground coriander and salt to taste. Cook for another 30 seconds, then add the spinach and a splash of water, if necessary. The mixture should be loose but not watery. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 minutes.

Add the paneer cubes, garam masala, and milk or cream. Stir and cook for a few minutes or until the spinach is creamy. Before serving, stir in the lemon juice to taste.

simple pilaff
2 TB vegetable oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 small onion, peeled and thinly sliced (I chopped mine instead)
1 tsp garam masala
salt, to taste
1 C Basmati or long-grain white rice, washed and soaked for 30 min.
3/4 C frozen peas
1.5 C water
1-2 TB lemon juice, or to taste

Heat the oil in a large nonstick saucepan. Add the cumin seeds and cook for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the onion and saute for about 6 minutes until lightly caramelized. Add the garam masala and salt, and cook, stirring, for another 20 seconds.

Stir in the drained rice and frozen peas, then add the water. Taste for seasoning. Bring to a boil, then cook, covered, on the lowest heat for 10 minutes. Check that the grains are tender; if not, leave to steam for another 2 minutes. Then remove the lid and allow any moisture to evaporate, Drizzle the lemon juice over and gently mix with a fork, fluffing up the grains.

daring bakers: steamed british pudding

I admit, I dreaded this challenge all month. We were supposed to make a traditional British steamed suet pudding, either a crust or a sponge pudding. The ingredient list for the sponge pudding didn't appeal to me, so I decided to make the crust pudding. But I was defeated by my imagination--a steamed crust pudding just sounded like it would come out squishy and dumpling-like. I couldn't bring myself to make it. (Judging by some of the others' pictures, I was completely wrong and steaming will give you a lovely crisp crust.) So I made the sponge pudding instead.

The batter had a nice flavor and came together in five minutes or less. I didn't know where to get suet, so I used a mixture of butter and butter-flavored Crisco. I was also out of milk, so I swapped half cream and half water. And I didn't have a one-liter bowl or even a tall, relatively narrow bowl. So I just buttered up one of my small metal mixing bowls and steamed the pudding in that. Unfortunately, I didn't butter it enough. My pudding broke when I tipped it out.

The final flavor of the pudding was fine. The breadcrumbs gave the pudding a coarser texture than I care for. I mixed up some Byrd's custard (with a little extra powder for thickening and a *ton* of extra sugar) and made a tangerine caramel for serving. After dousing the pudding in custard and caramel, I understood the need for the breadcrumbs. They help the pudding keep a little bit of form under a deluge of sauces.

The pudding was a fun thing to try, but I probably won't make it again. I liked it okay, but I didn't love it, even with the sauces. And three hours is a long time to wait for a dessert that I don't love. [Edit: After letting everything sit over night and cool so that it wasn't a hopeless slog of soggy pudding, I really enjoyed the dessert. It reminds me a little of old-fashioned strawberry shortcake.]

The April 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

steamed sponge pudding
100 g all-purpose flour
.25 tsp salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
100 g bread crumbs
75 g caster sugar
75 g butter & butter-flavored Cristco
1 large egg
6-8 TB cold milk

1-Sift flour, salt, and baking powder into bowl.
2-Add breadcrumbs, sugar, and fat.
3-Mix to a soft batter ith beaten egg and milk.
4-Turn into a buttered 1 liter pudding basin and cover securely with buttered greaseproof paper or aluminum foil.
5-Steam steadily for 2.5-3 hours.
6-Turn out onto warm plate. Serve with sweet sauce to taste, such as custard, caramel, or a sweetened fruit sauce.

David Lebovitz's chocolate sherbet

When I saw David's photo of this sherbet, I knew I had to make it. In fact, it looked so good I went ahead and made a quadruple batch the first time. It was easy to put together (aside from my letting the chocolate/milk mixture boil over--all over, below the electric coil on the stove and in the tiny gap between the stove and the cupboard--because the baby started crying at a crucial moment;), and it tasted every bit as good as it looked. I had some trouble getting it to freeze properly--I had to put it in the freezer to get it to set up, and it had some unpleasant ice crystals when it did--but testing other recipes confirmed that this is a problem with my ice cream maker and not the recipe.

This is a fantastically intense dark chocolate sherbet. While I certainly didn't limit myself to the one scoop David suggests, this sherbet packs enough punch that I felt satisfied much sooner than with regular ice creams. My only complaint about this sherbet was that when I did choose to glut myself on it, after I ate the sherbet for fifteen or twenty minutes, a cocoa/fat scum started to accrue on the roof of my mouth. I suspect this is a problem most people don't have.

chocolate sherbet (David Lebovitz)
2 cups (1/2l) milk (whole, low, or non-fat)
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup (50g) unsweetened cocoa powder
4 ounces (115g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
optional: 2 tablespoons coffee-flavored liqueur, such as Kahluà

For directions, see David's site.

pear caramel tartlets

I love tarts. I am invariably disappointed by tarts that I get at local restaurants and bakeries, though. The crusts are hard and flavorless and the fillings are boring. But I love baking tarts. I've had a few disappointments baking them myself, but not many. I love Dorie Greenspan's Tartest Lemon Tart and I adore Pierre Herme's Linzer Tart. Herme's cinnamon-rum-almond tart crust for the linzer tart is my absolute favorite. It's easy to make (at least, it is now that I can buy almond flour instead of having to grind it myself), it has a lovely crumbly texture, and it's delicious. Homemade tarts are one of my favorite desserts. And the only way to improve on a homemade tart is to make it a tartlet. Smaller means cuter, and as long as there are enough minis to go around, it means you can try all the flavors or have several servings of the same one without the guilt of having a full serving each time.

My family gave me a set of mini tart pans for Christmas, and I'm always plotting new things to try in them. (You'll be seeing a lot more tartlet posts as I work out the fillings I like.) I made these pear caramel cinnamon cream cheese tartlets a couple of months ago and they were a big hit with my family. The caramel was something I threw together after reading the ingredients on a bottle of delicious and, sadly, discontinued pear caramel I found at the store. Mine was, of course, quite different from the original, but still quite good. It seems to be my sister's new favorite. At any rate, it's a work in progress, so the directions are a bit higgedly-piggedly. When I made the tarts again to use up the remaining caramel, I replaced the cinnamon in the cream cheese with ginger. The sharper flavor was a nice contrast with the caramel.

pear caramel tartlets

pear caramel

2 C pear juice

2 C sugar

.5 C corn syrup

1 TB butter

2 C cream

pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp-2 Tb lemon juice (to taste)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Melt the butter. Add sugar and corn syrup. Mix and cook on medium heat until just turning golden. Add the pear juice and cook ten or twenty minutes so that the mixture thickens. Remove from heat and whisk in the remaining ingredients. When cooled to room temperature, spoon over cream cheese in tart shells.

cream cheese filling

8 oz cream cheese, softened

pear caramel, to sweeten to taste

.5 tsp cinnamon or 1 tsp ginger

Mix all and spoon into cooled tart shells.

tart crust (from Chocolate, by Pierre Herme)

7 TB unsalted butter, at room temperature

2.5 TB confectioners' sugar

2.5 TB finely ground almond powder

1 large hard-boiled egg yolk, at room temperature, pressed through a fine strainer

.25 tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 tsp dark rum

pinch of double-acting baking powder

.75 C all-purpose flour

Mix butter until creamy. Add sugar, almond powder, egg yolk, cinnamon, and salt. Mix until smooth, scraping bowl as necessary. Whisk the baking powder into the flour and add the flour to the bowl, mixing until thoroughly blended. The dough will feel soft and look a little like the dough you'd use to make peanut butter cookies.

Place dough in plastic wrap and form into a disk. Chill at least 4 hours before rolling and baking.

Roll the dough out or pat it into the tart pans. Chill at least thirty minutes.

Bake at 350 until crust is honey brown. (How long this takes depends on the size of your mini tart pans.)

daring bakers: blood orange tian

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose orange tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

This is my first Daring Bakers challenge, and it was a lot of fun. I had never heard of a tian before. The dessert is a pate sablee spread with orange marmalade and covered with whipped cream, orange segments, and orange caramel. This was a nice dessert, but it needs a little punch. If I made it again, I'd use a cream cheese-whipped cream mixture instead of plain whipped cream.

I decided to make mine with blood oranges. I think they're beautiful, and I especially love the way they look like jelly candy when you slice them.

I've made pate sablee before, so making it was a snap (especially now that my grocery store carries almond flour). The marmalade was easy as well, and unusually tasty. I was out of pectin, so I used some gelatine to set the marmalade. Too much gelatine, as it turned out. My delicious marmalade turned into delicious blood orange jello. I snacked on a little of it and threw the rest in the food processor with hot water until it was spreadable.

I was excited that Jennifer included a recipe for stabilized whipped cream, because I've always had trouble making it, even when I follow the recipes in my cookbooks exactly. Apparently the gelatine requires a lot more water than my other recipes suggested. This time, it worked perfectly--no horrible gelatine chunks to be strained out of my whipped cream.

I had a little trouble with the caramel. The sugar seized when I added the orange juice. I had to take the pan off the heat and keep reheating the juice and pouring it over the sugar until most of it mixed together. Then I moved it to a different pan to thicken it.

Segmenting the oranges was the hardest part for me. Thank goodness Jennifer gave us a link on how to do it. Even with great instructions, it took me forever to segment the oranges. After soaking them in the caramel and draining them, I put the soaking caramel back in with the rest so I could have extra sauce.

The upside-down assembly was fun. I broke my crust trying to assemble the dessert, but you couldn't really tell once it was all together.

blood orange tian (adapted from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School)

pate sablee
2 medium-sized egg yolks, room temperature
6 TB + 1 tsp sugar
½ tsp vanilla
¼ C + 3 TB unsalted butter, ice cold, cubed
1/3 tsp salt
1.5 C + 2 TB flour
1 tsp baking powder

Put the flour, baking powder, ice cold cubed butter and salt in a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

In a separate bowl, add the eggs yolks, vanilla extract and sugar and beat with a whisk until the mixture is pale. Pour the egg mixture in the food processor.

Process until the dough just comes together. If you find that the dough is still a little too crumbly to come together, add a couple drops of water and process again to form a homogeneous ball of dough. Form into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.

Pat the dough onto the bottom of a parchment-paper-lined 9" springform pan until you have a .25"-thick circle.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the circles of dough are just golden.


blood orange marmalade

.25 C + 3 TB fresh blood orange juice
1 large orange (to make orange slices)
cold water
5 g pectin
granulated sugar: use the same weight as the weight of orange slices once they are cooked

Finely slice the orange. Place the orange slices in a medium-sized pot filled with cold water. Simmer for about 10 minutes, discard the water, re-fill with cold water and blanch the oranges for another 10 minutes.

Blanch the orange slices 3 times. This process removes the bitterness from the orange peel, so it is essential to use a new batch of cold water every time when you blanch the slices.

Once blanched 3 times, drain the slices and let them cool.

Once they are cool enough to handle, finely mince them (using a knife or a food processor).

Weigh the slices and use the same amount of granulated sugar. If you don’t have a scale, you can place the slices in a cup measurer and use the same amount of sugar.

In a pot over medium heat, add the minced orange slices, the sugar you just weighed, the orange juice and the pectin. Cook until the mixture reaches a jam consistency (10-15 minutes).

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge.

blood orange segments:
8 blood oranges

Cut the oranges into segments over a shallow bowl and make sure to keep the juice. Add the segments to the bowl with the juice.


blood orange caramel:
1 C sugar
1.5 C + 2 TB blood orange juice

Place the sugar in a pan on medium heat and begin heating it.

Once the sugar starts to bubble and foam, slowly add the orange juice. As soon as the mixture starts boiling, remove from the heat and pour half of the mixture over the orange segments.

Reserve the other half of the caramel mixture in a small bowl — you will use this later to spoon over the finished dessert. When the dessert is assembled and setting in the freezer, heat the kept caramel sauce in a small saucepan over low heat until it thickens and just coats the back of a spoon (about 10 minutes). You can then spoon it over the orange tians.


stabilized whipped cream with marmalade:
1 C heavy whipping cream 1 cup
3 TB hot water
1 tsp gelatine
1 TB confectioner's sugar
1 TB orange marmalade (see recipe above)

In a small bowl, add the gelatine and hot water, stirring well until the gelatine dissolves. Let the gelatine cool to room temperature while you make the whipped cream. Combine the cream in a chilled mixing bowl. Whip the cream using a hand mixer on low speed until the cream starts to thicken for about one minute. Add the confectioner's sugar. Increase the speed to medium-high. Whip the cream until the beaters leave visible (but not lasting) trails in the cream, then add the cooled gelatine slowly while beating continuously. Continue whipping until the cream is light and fluffy and forms soft peaks. Transfer the whipped cream to a bowl and fold in the orange marmalade.


assembly:
Make sure you have some room in your freezer. Ideally, you should be able to fit a small baking sheet or tray of desserts to set in the freezer.

Line a small tray or baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone sheet. Lay out 6 cookie cutters onto the parchment paper/silicone.

Drain the orange segments on a kitchen towel.

Have the marmalade, whipped cream and baked circles of dough ready to use.

Arrange the orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter. Make sure the segments all touch either and that there are no gaps. Make sure they fit snuggly and look pretty as they will end up being the top of the dessert. Arrange them as you would sliced apples when making an apple tart.

Once you have neatly arranged one layer of orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter, add a couple spoonfuls of whipped cream and gently spread it so that it fills the cookie cutter in an even layer. Leave about 1/4 inch at the top so there is room for dough circle.

Using a butter knife or small spoon, spread a small even layer of orange marmalade on each circle of dough.

Carefully place a circle of dough over each ring (the side of dough covered in marmalade should be the side touching the whipping cream). Gently press on the circle of dough to make sure the dessert is compact.

Place the desserts to set in the freezer to set for 10 minutes.

Using a small knife, gently go around the edges of the cookie cutter to make sure the dessert will be easy to unmold. Gently place your serving plate on top of a dessert (on top of the circle of dough) and turn the plate over. Gently remove the cookie cutter, add a spoonful of caramel sauce and serve immediately.

olive oil and balsamic vinegar ice cream

A few years ago, one of my foodie friends told me that she and her husband had fond memories of an olive oil ice cream served for dessert on an out-of-state trip they'd taken. A the time I thought it sounded a little odd, something I'd probably not be interested in. But B has a crazy olive-oil-and-vinegar obsession, and when he recently started getting his fix by swirling oil and vinegar in a glass and drinking them straight, I thought, there's got to be a better way to do this. And I remembered K's olive oil ice cream. I headed to the internet, and found a promising recipe at the Worldwide Gourmet.

Although I'd rate the recipe as easy on the whole, the directions were a little confusing for someone with as little ice-cream making experience as I have. I haven't made a lot of custard bases, and I curdled my first batch. This made B ridiculously happy because we strained out the clumpy bits and he drank the custard and dunked French bread in it. I also had a bit of weirdness with trying to fold the cream into the anglaise. There's a *lot* of custard, and it sort of dissolved the whipped cream, leaving a few bits of whipped cream unincorporated. I'll play with this next time to see if I can get it mixed smoothly.

Now, if you're anything like my friends, this recipe may be inspiring a lot of hate. I know it isn't exactly a standard flavor, but I wasn't expecting so many of the people I talked to about it to dislike the idea so much. If you're leaning this direction, I have good news for you--you're wrong. This is one of best ice creams we've eaten. I loved it, the one friend who actually tasted it loved it, and B loved it. Enough to go back for more every night. (With B, this is the equivalent of an 15-out-of-10-star rating. He does *not* go looking for dessert. If I buy his usual favorite, strawberry ice cream, it will sit in the freezer for two months before he'll consider eating it. And he loves it.) The olive oil and balsamic are there, but they're quite subtle. If I didn't know what I was eating, I wouldn't guess olive oil and vinegar. The custard base is incredibly rich, as it should be with ten egg yolks, and the oil and vinegar complement it nicely. The final product is a beautiful custard color.

At some point, I want to try making a savory version of the ice cream, where the oil and vinegar are more noticeable, but it's hard to really think about tinkering with this recipe when it's perfect. The finished ice cream was a little bit icy in texture, but based on results making other ice creams, that seems to be a problem with our machine and not the recipe. (If you have any recommendations for a really good ice cream maker, I'd love to hear them.)

Now for the best ice cream recipe ever. Go make yourself a batch. You deserve it.

olive oil and balsamic vinegar ice cream (from The Worldwide Gourmet)

4 C milk
10 egg yolks
9 oz. sugar
9 oz. cream
3 TB olive oil (I used a robust oil to be sure the flavor would show up.)
2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar. Heat the milk. (I don't know how hot it's supposed to be; I'd recommend checking your favorite liquid custard recipe.) Temper the egg mixture with some of the hot milk. Whisk the remaining hot milk into the eggs and transfer to a heavy saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens slightly to form a creme anglaise. Do not overheat or the eggs will curdle.

Cool custard to lukewarm. Whip the cream and fold it into the creme anglaise. Add the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Put in ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Devour.