I Want My Just Dessert!

by Chewy 


I think we can all agree that it is HOT! Not the kind of hot where you bask in the sun and sip margaritas. More like the sidewalk egg frying, banned alcohol (because it dehydrates),  bathtub temperature pool water, I don’t even want to go outside for the mail hot. You don’t even need charcoal for the BBQ pit. Food just sizzles when you place it on the grill. Who feels like eating let alone cooking?  Where does this leave our desserts if we ‘re barely eating a meal? I’ll tell you where….first. Not merely first but possibly “only”. Yes, dear readers, I am advocating getting your “just desserts” for dinner!

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Instead of that patio soiree with heavy brats and pork steaks, why not offer your guests an opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream, a dessert laden buffet as the main course. A true Charlie and the chocolate factory moment come true. Themes are definitely encouraged and forget the homemade baked goods. No need to heat up the house. Show Me the Sugar offers suggestions, descriptions and locations for all your “to go” sweet needs.

There is a reason that half the dessert holidays in July revolve around ice cream. Apparently that’s all we want to eat. Cool, refreshing, no cooking required, what’s not to celebrate? Gathering an assortment of ice creams, gelatos, and sorbets makes for one rejuvenating gathering. While good frozen treats can stand on their own, it would not be inappropriate to offer a smattering of toppings in order to customize your bowl. Of course, if you own a Cuisinart ice cream maker (which some of you may know I do), you may present your guests with unique flavors limited only by your imagination.

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This time of year also means summer fruits and berries. A plethora of fresh fruit makes for not only a visual treat but also one for the taste buds. Who doesn’t salivate over a fresh fruit torte or a bowl of sugared strawberries with fresh whipped cream? How about some peaches swimming in a smooth brandied sauce? Can you picture a watermelon sorbet served in it’s carved out shell (scallop the rim and do a little shallow carving and it‘s also a center piece)? Fruit also makes a great delivery system for chocolate fondue, marshmallow fluff, clotted cream and caramel sauce. Create your own dipping station with plenty of small plates, long picks and lots of napkins (neat this is not).

Not to be overlooked is your local patisserie. Nothing like a little French flair to add some exotic ambiance. If you haven’t tried the macarons yet (not the coconut macaroons), now is your chance to become acquainted with this little delicacy. Order a few Napoleons, éclairs, crème brulee, petit fours and mousse and arrange on tiered platters for optimum visual delight. This scenario also doubles as a European vacation and, may I add, it’s significantly cooler there, so crank down the air conditioning a bit.

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While I am not advocating this option as a permanent lifestyle, just dessert meals seems like a fair trade off for surviving our record breaking atmospheric conditions. I, for one, intend on staying cool and sweet!

It Use To Be So Simple

by Chewy

Remember the days when your go to flavors of ice cream revolved around strawberry or chocolate ripple? Then Baskin Robbins came along with their 31 flavors and the villagers went insane over the idea. Not satisfied with the original 31, some were retired or replaced with ever surprising infusions of flavor. Even with all this diversity, flavors still followed a traditional trail. Sweet things go with sweet things, savory with savory and never the twain shall meet. Even Ben and Jerry usually followed this scenario.

That whole idea has been kicked to the curb and it’s no longer cool to use the mundane in your frozen treats. While bacon didn’t start it, it certainly has helped to perpetuate and inspire ever more challenging combination, although, even this ingredient is bordering on the blasé at this point. Yet, I’m positively piggish about pork still!

There’s no doubt that around the world there are some pretty scary traditional ice cream flavors that fall along cultural divides (this will be dealt with in a future blog), but today I will keep this relatively indigenous.

Ruth and Phils, lauding from Chicago, take advantage of fresh summer fruits and vegetables to concoct Summer Sweet Corn ice cream, Cantaloupe Avocado Jalapeno sorbet (you know how I feel about avocados!) and Cucumber Blueberry Lime sorbet. Presently only available in limited locales, it may soon be coming to your local Whole Foods store.

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New York is no new comer to food fads and il laboratorio del gelato is no exception. For the adventurous palate they provide Fresh Brown Turkey, Sweet Potato and Tarragon Pink Pepper.  They are proud to hand make all the flavors in small batches and I think I grasp the reasoning behind limited production. I don’t imagine a huge rush for Turkey, even seasonally. Sweet Potato is igniting my curiosity.

Another New York establishment, Max and Mina’s Ice Cream has heated things up with sweet and spicy combos. Sugar tempers the fire in their Spicy Peanut Butter which culminates in a warm glow due to the added red peppers and chilies. Following in the same genre are Black  Pepper and Corn Horseradish.  Traditional Italian flavors in an egg yolk base make up their Pizza ice cream and  what goes best with that? A cup of their Beer ice cream!

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, Columbus, OH, follows the “It’s cold! It’s hot!” theme with Queen City Cheyenne and Bangkok Peanut (secret ingredient, Cheyenne pepper, of course). Apparently, pepper has become the new “salt” in savory/sweet pairings. While I have often seen people salt fruits to bring out the sweet, my roommate in college was the only person I knew who peppered hers. She was obviously decades ahead of her time!

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One last nod to the porcine premise goes to Humphry Slocombe of San Francisco and their Boccalone Prosciutto. And not sure which way to go, they covered all the bases by adding both salt and pepper.

The following flavors are honorable mentions, only because they come from Europe and can not be obtained locally. Cigar Smoked Caramel, combining two after dinner pastimes and perhaps an age limit and required ID, has increased sales by 60% for one establishment. Others have followed a theme with grass, strawberry and hay for Wimbledon. Another nod of creativity goes to parsnip and wasabi, and smoked olive oil and black pepper.

These examples have definitely had their effect on my creative senses and with my little  Cuisinart ice cream maker ever ready to serve, the sky’s  the limit on ingredients. If I ever come up with anything palatable, you can be assured you’ll read about it here first!

Only the Best

by Chewy

You’ve gone to the grocery store, stuck religiously to your list, brought the coupons you meticulously cut out and avoided all the stores padded for profit items. Much to your surprise, there is a little left over for a treat. Now comes the hard part, what to spend it on. None of us want to buy that item with the exceptionally yummy photo on the packaging, only to get it home, open it up and discover you bought a mutant facsimile that leaves you disappointed and under-satisfied. Thankfully, we have Consumer Reports to aid us in obtaining our “just desserts” .

In July’s issue, they have rated the best frozen treats, and it’s none too early as some of us have been scouting out frozen treats since March! They broke the article down into three sections, taste, nutrition and bottom line. There were a few surprises and some “of course, what else” responses.

Take, for example, the strawberry fruit bars. Whole foods 365 Everyday Value placed an Excellent, the only one to do so. It has a few more calories then the others on the list, but isn’t that where the great flavor is? Actually contains large chunks of fruit! Runners up in the Very Good column included Dryer’s/Edy’s, Whole Fruit and Blue Bell. Coming in third under Good was Weight Watchers and Dole.

When it comes to Ice Cream Bars (dark chocolate over vanilla ice cream) there were no real shockers here. Haagen-Dazs’ and Dove’s strong dairy/vanilla taste and rich chocolate coating, raises them to Excellent status. Although the coating was painted slightly chalky, Julie’s Organic ranked Very Good. Klondike, Magnum and Good Humor ( flavor described as waxy, artificial vanilla, and hint of wooden stick….still if this is your fancy, who am I to judge) arrived at Good.

Ice Cream Sandwiches (vanilla ice cream inside chocolate wafers) was a tough category, no one ranked Excellent. The top of this class, Very Good, goes to Walgreens Old Fashioned (still supporting my jaw over this one). I would have never sought out this brand, but with this knowledge I will definitely put it on the “list”. Trailing behind under Good, we find Klondike, Great Value (Walmart), Blue Bunny, Weight Watchers, Klondike 100 calorie and Skinny Cow.

When it comes to nutrition, no real stunners to consider. Fruit is lower in fat and calories, the dairy items have comparable calories to each other and the “diet” entries didn’t necessarily have fewer calories.

There is a small blurb for non-dairy (think soy, artificial flavoring, corn syrup). Delicious Dairy free Vanilla minis and Tofutti dairy Free Cuties Vanilla sandwiches were summed up tersely as, artificial vanilla flavor, soft and sticky wafers, stale and NOT delicious. This is why I prefer to make my own non-dairy ice cream.

The bottom line seemed a bit simplistic but sensible: choose the ones with an excellent rating.

With this information in hand, I hope it helps to make your summer a little sweeter!

OOPS!

by Chewy

There is no doubt that some accidents have lead to great discoveries and inventions. Everything from Isaac Newton’s apple knocking, to glue that wouldn’t stick post it notes, to burr covered dogs leading to Velcro. Things are the same in the culinary world as well and those “oops!” have lead to some masterpieces. One example, if you are to believe the story, is salt water taffy (Taffy, A Sticky Situation) where the Atlantic Ocean recreated the whole taffy industry.

I also picture a scenario where prior to a dinner party, the hostess places the dessert in the middle of the table as a center piece. Just as she is lighting the candles, her adroit husband, open wine bottle in hand, trips over the dog and splashes some on her dessert. Startled and upset she drops the match and whoosh……flambé is invented. It could have happened.

There are some more reliable mishaps that have ended up being quite the sensation. Take for example the chocolate chip cookie. Did you grow up thinking this came from the Nestle labs, slapping the recipe on every package of their chocolate morsels? The last part is accurate but the recipe comes from a failed baking experiment. Credited to Ruth Graves Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn (has a nice ring to it) in Whitman Mass, the now famous Toll House cookie recipe was really a work of substitution. Legend has it that in 1930, Ruth ran short of baking chocolate and decided to use smashed up pieces from a bar of semi-sweet chocolate. Adding these to her dough, she was pleasantly surprised to find that the chocolate did not melt into the batter as planned. Nestle later acquired the rights to the recipe and became a global giant.

Another misstep occurred in 1905 in San Francisco. Eleven year old Frank Epperson wanted to make soda pop and mixed soda powder with water. Using a stick to stir the concoction, he accidentally left it on the porch overnight. The next day, Frank discovered it had frozen solid with the stick still in it. Fast forward 18 years, Frank decided to market his childhood invention. Meeting with instant success, he patented the idea. Originally dubbed the “Eppsicle”, his children implored and convinced him to rename it “Popsicle”. The original 7 flavors have now grown to 30; the most popular flavor being classic orange.

St. Louis has long taken great pride in our next entry, the ice cream cone. During the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair an ice cream seller ran out of dishes. A nearby Syrian pastry vendor, Ernest Hamwi, rolled his pastry into a cone so the ice cream could be scooped inside. An instant hit, it has competition on originality. Appears and Italian immigrant, Italo Marchiony, had also paired these two items and acquired a patent for it earlier in the year.

photo by becco

Our final entry comes from down under. One hundred years ago, Lord Lamington (governor of Queensland at the time), accidentally dropped a cake in some melted chocolate. It was then decided to cover it with coconut so it wouldn’t look so messy. Thus the Australian Lamington was born, and enjoyed ever since.

The lesson we can take away from these legends is always to keep an open mind. Never fear to cook outside the lines, improvise, substitute and experiment. If mishaps occur, and they will (Kitchen Klutzes Unite), trust your eyes, nose, ears and mouth and smear it, dust it or slather it with an interesting ingredient. Perhaps your gaffe will make the “famous desserts created by mistake” list.

  

No Sweat Desserts

by Chewy

photo by Tombre

Why do we like to bake in the fall and winter? Because heating up the kitchen is a plus during these seasons. Not so much in the summer when the mercury is hovering at 90 and above. Those of us who love the heat (La Confectionista) are too busy with outdoor activities to be bothered with creating confections. Those of us who don’t (Chewy) are too busy trying to figure out whether to hibernate in a meat locker or just have blocks of ice delivered to the house to recline upon. In the basement. With a TV and a remote control. Neither of these activities mean forgoing dessert. In fact, while most of the world packs on the pounds during winter, I tend to do it in the summer. In the basement. With a TV and a remote control.

I started thinking about the sweets that can be made without turning on the oven and was surprised at all the options. The first, and most obvious, is ice cream. I am a big fan of Cuisinart’s ice cream maker (not a paid spokesperson)  and have had much success with simple recipes. After placing all the ingredients in the frozen “pot”, you can be eating ice cream in as little as twenty minutes. This does take a little forethought as you need to freeze the container for 24 hours. What this fuels is anticipation and makes it all that much sweeter when you finally get to delve in.

There is a wonderful website (yes, I will share) that is partially devoted to the non-baked dessert. With recipes like Popcorn Cake, Raspberry Cheese Cake, and Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte Cake, there is no shortage of the yum factor and no straining of the air conditioner. You can find these and others at Recipes 4 Cakes. 

Plenty of choices to last you all summer.

Why this has never occurred to me before makes me question my whole IQ level. Where do we go to cook in the summer so we don’t heat up the kitchen? Out on the patio sits our ersatz oven, the BBQ grill. Many of us have tried grilled fruit, either skewered on a kabob or sliced and directly placed on the grill. The heat really brings out the sweet and caramelizes the natural sugar. Fancier fare is available in the form of Baked Alaska and Cherry Chocolate and Bailey’s Irish Cream Cherry Pie.  While I am sure I could find BBQ dessert recipes from women, I found it interesting that the majority of recipes I found came from men. Apparently an outdoor grill brings out a man’s inner dessert meister as well.

  Cherry Chocolate and Bailey’s Irish Cream Cherry Pie 

Not to be overlooked is the Directory of Delish on this website. Feel free to roam around, select you genre and enjoy at your selected establishment. While you’re there, would you ask if they deliver to basements?

The Ice Cream Cometh

photo by pietrgiord

by Chewy

Well, my thoughts of ice cream arrived in March and then quickly retracted in April to all things warm and comfy. Drat this mercurial weather pattern! It has my dessert lineups completely disheveled. However, just today I heard reported that we will have above average temps in May and June, so NOW is the time to contemplate our frozen confections.

I know there are people who enjoy ice cream all year round, but I just can’t wrap myself around a cold dessert while I’m wearing a coat, earmuffs and mittens. This may have to do with my northern Minnesota up-bringing. During the winter, the Dairy Queen closed until the “great thaw“. Every year we looked forward with anticipation to once again seeing the lawn, temps above freezing, the return of the birds, longer sunny days and a crème de menthe sundae at the reopening of DQ. Opening day at DQ was not unlike that of the Cardinals with traffic jams, crowded parking, and joyous faces standing in LONG lines (walk up out door windows only in those days). I’m not sure if parades and fireworks accompanied this event, but they could have.

Today, we have many more options to choose from when it comes to ice cream. Besides the frozen dessert aisle in the grocery store, specialty establishments have sprung up all over town. From Oberweis to the renowned Ted Drewes, from gelato to shaved ice, our choices break down into two groups, those that have a dairy base and those that don’t. So that you are prepared to make an informed decision, we’ll discuss a  short synopsis of each variety. While this is not a comprehensive listing, it does cover the basics.

Starting with the dairy based we have the following:

Ice cream: (Properly ice-cream, derived from iced cream or cream ice) . This is a dairy based product, usually made from milk or cream and often combined with fruits, nuts and additional flavors (artificial and natural). The mixture of desired ingredients is stirred slowly while cooling, in order to incorporate air and to prevent large ice crystals from forming. The result is a smoothly textured, semi solid, foam that can be scooped. Interestingly, the higher the fat content, the harder the product and of course, bigger yum factor.

Ice Milk: Similar in production and ingredients to ice cream, it differs in that it contains less than 10 percent milk fat. This results in typically lower pricing. In 1994, the  U.S. FDA rules allowed ice milk to be labeled as low-fat ice cream.

 

Frozen Yogurt:  A frozen dessert containing yogurt, it is slightly tarter than ice cream, not to mention, lower in fat. It differs from ice milk in that it includes yogurt as an ingredient. Consists of milk solids, some kind of sweetener, milk fat, yogurt culture, coloring and flavoring.

Frozen Custard: Similar to ice cream, it is made with eggs in addition to cream and sugar. U.S. FDA standards require frozen custard to contain at least 10 percent milk fat and 1.4 percent egg yolk solids (any less and it is considered ice cream) True frozen custard is very dense. The soft serve variety is composed of 50 percent air allowing for easy mixture of additional ingredients (custom fruits, nuts and syrups) and facile dispensing.

photo by raatcc36

Gelato: Italian for ice cream, it differs in the butterfat content (4-8% , gelato vs. 14%, ice cream)  and sugar content (16-24%, gelato vs. 12-16%, ice cream). On a personal note, I have never found a gelato here in the states that equals what I experienced in Italy. It has totally ruined me for any other frozen dessert. With airfare the way it, awfully expensive to obtain.

Sherbet: A fruity flavored frozen dessert product with a butter fat content between 1-2 percent. In the United States it must contain  dairy, either milk or cream.

Now on to our non-dairy based items:

Sorbet: A frozen dessert made from sweetened water with fruit, wine or liqueur flavoring. Sometimes served between meal courses as a way to cleanse the palate before the main course. The addition of alcohol lowers the freezing temperature resulting in a softer texture. The lack of dairy and no whipped in air makes for a dense and extremely flavorful product.

Italian Ice: Also known as water ice, it is often confused with sorbet. Sweetened and  made with fruit, it is not shaved ice, but rather processed in the same way that ice cream is without dairy or egg ingredients.

Snow Cone: Shaved ice dessert, served in a paper cone or Styrofoam container, then topped with a flavored sugar syrup. May also be referred to as a snowball.