Blueberry Ice Cream

Don’t expect an extremely creamy texture of this ice cream.  Because blueberries contains lots of water itself, I don’t know how to reduce the icy texture when using blueberry as the main ingredient, except wiping the washed blueberry drier.

Re-challenged: Sept 4, 2016.   The texture of the ice cream was improved A LOT, less slushy because I tried to reduce liquid contents.  Still, may be I should replace maple syrup with just sugar to make it even better.  Recipe below has been updated to reflect improvement.

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Salted Caramel Ice Cream: Inspiration from Earnest Ice Cream

A lot of my friends posted their visits to the famous Earnest Ice Cream on Facebook this summer.  I always want to be one of them, but going to a crowded busy small ice cream parlour which only opens Thurs – Sunday noon-10pm is a difficult excursion for a mother of two young kids.  Finally last week, I sneaked out to do my hair, and god knows the hair salon is only 3 DOORS away from Earnest Ice Cream.  There were only 10 people in front of me that Saturday at 2 pm.  After I ordered, there were like 20 people behind me.  Gosh, but their ice cream is so heavenly.  The salted caramel ice cream stole the show (my other scoop was London Fog), it was sweet but it was incredibly velvety and creamy.  My husband is not an ice cream fan and hates crowds, so making him a homemade version is the only way to have him tasting the ‘uh, so good’ salted caramel ice cream.  This recipe was adapted from Epicurious and it’s the most highly rated top search recipe.  I read the reviews very carefully and had to make lots of alterations from the original recipe.  Plus I did screw up and scrambled the egg custard when I followed the ‘medium’ heat directions.  So following this adapted recipe should yield pretty good gourmet ice cream at home.  Oh, and I can finally make good use of the expensive Maldon salt that I didn’t have chance to use.  Eventhough I find this batch a tiny bit bitter due to over caramelization, but all my friends who tasted it and even my husband like it a lot because it’s not as sweet as the Earnest version and they don’t find it bitter at all.  My next task is to make their other famous flavor (London Fog) ice cream at home!!

See original :  Salted Caramel Ice Cream Recipe | Epicurious.com.

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Taro Ice Cream

My family loves Taro. I remember once upon a time, taro was my most favorite bubble tea flavors.  I think I know why I love taro.  It’s because my grandma had bought some UBE ice cream from the Phillippines when I was young, and I felt in love immediately with that bright purple creamy ice cream.  I went to Manila two years ago, and to my biggest disappointment the Mongolia ice cream company sold their products to Nestle.  Thus I came empty handed with no ice cream from the Phillippines.

Homemade ice cream has less synthetic ingredients and has more natural flavor.  There must be a good taro ice cream recipe out there, unfortunately I could not find a promising recipe online.  Thus I’m adapting from the pistachio recipe and it tastes great.

Taro ice cream

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Pistachio ice cream

Whenever I eat to an ice cream parlour, I always order pistachio gelato.  I love its creaminess and pistachio’s mild nutty taste.   During my first anniversary trip to Portland, I bought an inexpensive ice cream maker from Costco.  Not sure if it’s my freezer that’s not cold enough or it’s the ice cream maker, the mixture is still runny after the expected 30 minutes process time.  Although it’s a pain to manually finish by alternating freezing and mixing, the product is satisfying without too much artificial additives found in store-brought ice cream.   This ice cream gets hard easily, thus it’s best to enjoy it within a couple days after making it.

PIstachio ice cream

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