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Ever since I’ve started using my ice cream maker it seems as though I can’t stop! What also doesn’t help is to have cookbooks from David Lebovitz and Emily Luchetti sitting around with millions of tasty recipes just calling out to you. So instead of brushing aside this desire I decided to indulge and tried two recipes in one day. I tried David Lebovitz’s Lemon-Buttermilk Sherbet and Emily Luttetti’s Rhubarb Ice Cream with Strawberry Compote. Both were extremely delicious, and I would highly recommend trying them out.
Well, after some pretty busy work weeks I found myself with a free weekend night (a rare thing for me) and so some friends and I planned a last minute summer BBQ. We all love good food so instead of buying in lots of stuff we all brought dishes…it was so much fun! I made a total of four things with the help of my friend Kate. I tried a new recipe from Food & Wine magazine and absolutely loved it. The recipe is from Sue Zemanick, who was voted “Best New Chef” by Food & Wine magazine last year. The recipe was Chile-Lime Crab Salad with Tomato and Avocado. I highly recommend trying it out and not skimping on the quality of the ingredients. This salad is so fresh and tasty, but must have top quality ingredients for you to get the full experience.
So my ice cream addiction continues and my love affair with David Lebovitz’s book, “The Perfect Scoop“, keeps getting stronger and stronger. I tried out these two new recipes for a cooking class that I taught. I thought I’d wet your appetite by posting these two delicious recipes. I wanted to try one recipe that was rich and sinful and another recipe that was fruity and lighter, so my choices were “Chocolate-Peanut Butter Ice Cream” and “Apricot-Pistachio Ice Cream”. Both of these in my opinion were winners. Hands down everyone was more obsessed with trying to get a taste of the Chocolate-Peanut Butter one, but can you blame them…just hearing the title makes me want to make another pint. However to be fair, I thought that the Apricot-Pistachio was quite yummy too. If you are an apricot lover then this one would be a huge winner for you! So enough chattering…here are the recipes!
This is definitely a recipe must for everyone! I am not a drinker by any means…the only kind of drinks I like are girly, fruity ones and I still find those hard to drink since they have calories (and loads of them) and I figure that I could have a dessert instead, but this drink/dessert is the perfect combo for me! This recipe is from David Lebovitz’s book, The Perfect Scoop, a book solely devoted to ice creams, sorbets, granitas, and sweet accompaniments. He describes granita as “a shaved ice, made from a lightly sweetened fruit puree or another liquid.” Even though I have drooled over many recipes so far this was the first one I’ve tried. The simplicity of the recipe is amazing, which lends itself to the pure and simple fact that you have no reason not to try it. Well, if I haven’t convinced you already hopefully the photos will!
Flipping through the pages of Bon Appetit a while back, I found a recipe that intrigued me, so as always I ripped the page out of magazine and placed it on my ever growing pile of “must-try recipes”. Since I have been on my passion fruit craze lately I decided to try it out, but I wanted to make it my own and change up the recipe. I love macadamia nuts and graham cracker crusts, so I thought I would swap out their regular sugar tart crust for this combo…let me tell you that I am glad that I did!
That was not the only change I made to the recipe…they wanted shredded coconut in the coconut cream filling, but something in my head kept telling me that the mouth feel just wouldn’t be right (at least for me) with pieces of coconut in it, so I decided to just have the smooth coconut cream filling. I also always like trying my desserts out in different forms so that I can see if they would work as a mini dessert or just an individual dessert size. I love minis and always try to find recipes that can turn into mini delights. This recipe performed beautifully with both sizes. The flavors were amazing and definitely a keeper for future uses!
I wanted to share some photos from one of my last cooking classes at Prep Kitchen Essentials. The class was on pies and tarts, and we had a lot of fun! The menu was… pumpkin chiffon pie, bourbon chocolate pecan pie, coconut cream tart with macadamia nut crust, and pear cranberry pie with gingersnap crust. The photo quality isn’t perfect, but I tried my best while running around teaching! 
A couple weeks ago as I was perusing the cookbook aisle at Barnes & Noble a new book caught my eye -Warren Brown’s first book, Cake Love. After skimming the pages I knew I had to buy it! I took it home and read it page by page. Warren Brown’s specialty is pound cake and this books highlights over 15 different variations of it…think Triple Lime-Chocolate Pound Cake or Espresso Pound Cake. But before trying the variations on his basic pound cake, I thought it would be good to start with his staples: Vanilla and Chocolate Pound Cake.
As I began to read his ingredient list, I came across a couple ingredients that you don’t typically find in pound cake, like lots of booze and potato starch. He says that alcohol gives the cake a nice complex flavor and the potato starch is his secret ingredient - “it tastes clean, absorbs twice as much moisture as wheat flour, cooks at a lower temperature than cornstarch and is softer than grain-based starches.”
Well after trying these two recipes and using his “secret ingredients” I was definitely won over. These were the best tasting pound cakes I have ever had! It even got better day by day as I kept them in the refrigerator and ate slice by slice. So here they are…enjoy! 
I wanted to share a couple photos and one of the recipes from my cooking class at Prep Kitchen Essentials, in Seal Beach, CA. The class was so much fun, and I couldn’t help but want to share with you the cream puff recipe! This recipe is quite easy and so much fun for everyone. You can make these into profiteroles by substituting the whipped cream filling for a scoop of your favorite ice cream…doesn’t that sound yummy!?
Several readers asked about the type of buttercream that I mainly use, so I thought that I would share it with you. I’ve had many buttercream woes leading up to this fantastic find of a buttercream. Either the buttercream was too sweet, too artificial tasting, grainy looking, not thick enough to pipe with, or had some other quality that led me to turn my nose up to it, but once I tried Elizabeth Falkner’s vanilla buttercream from her book Demolition Desserts my buttercream nightmares were over.
This, in my opinion, is the perfect buttercream to use on everything from cakes to cupcakes. I love her addition of salt to the recipe, which I think takes away that overly sugary taste, which I am not a fan of. Also her addition of lemon juice aides in this as well. However, I don’t add quite as much lemon juice to my buttercream as she does. Anyways, I hope that you enjoy this recipe as much as I have and let me know if you try it and what your opinion is.
Vanilla Buttercream
as adapted from Demolition Desserts
Now you can drink your dessert. Dessert cocktails are all the rage. At Al Copeland’s Sweet Fire and Ice in New Orleans, one can order a sippable Banana’s Foster dessert called the Sweet Fire and Bananas Foster Cheesecake Martini. At Florida’s 1 Bleu Restaurant, cosmopolitans and pina coladas are transformed into desserts made with alcoholic gels.
This would be perfect for a cocktail wedding, or a dessert reception.
Here’s a recipe that Bailey’s fans will love:
Baileys Caramel Apple Pie-tini
1 3/4 oz. Baileys with a Hint of Caramel
1/3 oz. Smirnoff Twist Green Apple Vodka
1/3oz. Applesauce
Dash of Caramel Syrup
Pour the applesauce into bottom of glass and float dash of caramel. Shake all other ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker, strain and float on top of the applesauce and caramel.
Garnish with a slice of caramel apple. Yum.
Photo and Recipe: www.drinkoftheweek.com
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