Showing posts with label Ice Cream Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ice Cream Ireland. Show all posts

Monday, August 23, 2010

Polly's Ice-Cream Adventure...

After a summer of absolute neglect regarding my own culinary adventures and blogging I seem to be on a roll at the moment. Having survived our annual vacation and annual scout camp, I returned to work somewhat shell-shocked, but now it seems, thankfully, that I've rediscovered my enthusiasm for many of the things I genuinely enjoy...

Last Thursday, for instance saw a moment of inspiration. I'd been gathering bits and pieces and finally I had them all, or so I thought! As I lay out the ingredients for my latest adventure I was smugly satisfied that the Book of Sweet Things recipe for an orange ice-cream would fulfil one of my all time favourite cravings. I love ice-cream, as in proper ice-cream rather than iced-desserts (vegetable fat desserts more like!), but I am particularly fond of orange ice-cream.

The ingredients for this recipe are very simple, relying on a traditional custard base made from full cream Tullamore Dairies Milk,  5 Free-range Egg Yokes, the zest of an Orange (scrubbed to remove any unwanted wax or pesticides),and my own Vanilla Sugar to which you add 50g Bitter Marmalade. The lightly whipped Double Cream and Jaffa Cakes are added later on.

Had the been in a box it might have been easier to find them, but these were smashed up in a plastic bag that I'd confiscated from one of our younger scouts on the last day of our annual camp. Reluctant to share his booty with the rest of us he'd hidden them in the bottom of his rucsack and the resulting mess was going to be thrown away. A light bulb had suddenly lit up in my head, I could use them...

Once the custard had thickened my patience (or lack of it) isn't always a virtue at this point, and I resorted to transferring the custard into my trusty pyrex jug and then pluged it into cold water. I find this is so much quicker than waiting for my cast iron saucepan to cool!

Now it was time to fold in the whipped cream and pour the resulting mix into the ice-cream maker.
Quite honestly this is the best part of ice-cream making. Not only do you get to watch the fruit of your labour turn into your favourite dessert, but you also get to clean the utensils!

Sometime around half way through the churning process you're supposed to add the chopped/shredded/crushed jaffa cakes, mmmmh.... The recipe calls for four 'shredded' Jaffa Cakes, in my case I picked out four intact orange jelly discs and a large handful of powdered biscuit base crumbs and shards of dark chocolate to add to the mixture...


Needless to say we'd to be patient at this stage. This, of course, didn't prevent us from 'tasting' the partly frozen ice-cream , although you've to be quick unless you want your fingers caught by the agitator! Tastings aside we did manage to transfer at least six large portions into suitably sized bowl before we shut it into the deepfreeze for a while, just to finish off the freezing process.

I can't honestly remember what we had for dinner that night, but I do remember what we had for dessert! It was just lovely. Even writing about it now has got my taste buds tingling! Best of all though, I was happy in the knowledge that there were another couple of scoops left over for another day. Imagine then how disappointed I was, after a horrid day at work to discover that my eldest boy had devoured my only source of solace hence the absence of photo's!

To add insult to injury I was later presented with the plastic agitator. It was mangled and in an unusable condition, thanks to Tilley the Sheepdog who just loves to chew anything and everything she can get her teeth on. I don't know how she got hold of it, but until I can locate a replacement it looks as though my ice-cream making days are over...

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Polly & Bogart's Secret Shared

A couple of weeks ago I made a promise to one of my many cyberfriends; I know Evelyne through the Irish Business Womens Forum aka IBW. Like many people I am quite partial to the odd drop of wine which is where my friend comes in; Through The Grape Vine is an on-line wine merchant specialising in fine wines, personal and corporate gifts, personalised wines, hampers and all manner of sumptuous gifts.


Just browsing through the site makes me want to whip out my credit card and place an order immediately. Sadly; for me this is not to be recommended as my social calendar is whirling out of control. With two weddings and two significant birthday's to celebrate; plus the cost of accommodation, travel and presents it's very much a case of budget cut back's this month!

That said perhaps I didn't have to drink DG's poor wallet dry last Friday night! (Oh yes, I did!) Having always been a sucker for classic cocktails and a nice venue; I was in my element. Having been invited to Ms T's wedding; which was celebrated at none other than Middleton Park House it was in my interests to be on my best behaviour for the evening. (Speaking of wedding's Through The Grape Vine do wedding packages too!)

Not only did I have to look good, it was important that I felt good too. Dressed in a mixture of classic cream teamed with a striking blue cashmere and silk wrap, matching leather gloves and six inch sateen heels in the same striking blue I looked and felt a million dollars. It would be a shame to spoil this illusion by lifting a pint of the black stuff to my pretty pink lips...

Instead I taught the barman a new cocktail; consisting only of the fruit of the vine, ie brandy and triple sec I figured this would be a safe bet for the evening. Not only did it look elegant; it tasted divine!

Side-Car
1 Measure Cognac
1 Measure Triple Sec
1 Measure Lemon
Ice

Very simply this cocktail is shaken not stirred! Just the way James Bond likes it; which is quite fitting considering that the Groom, his junior Best Man and Groom's Man arrived by helicopter!


For anyone who's not familiar with triple sec; this included me until relatively recently, Kieran over at Ice-Cream Ireland recently solved this most elusive of puzzles. According to the Wikipedia link in his article Triple Sec is any orange flavoured alcoholic liqueur. Considering that a Sidecar has been my favourite cocktail since my early twenties I felt a bit of a chump when I discovered this tantalisingly simple fact!

Until Friday I would always have recommended the clear Cointreau, which has a lovely sharp tangy flavour that added little to the drink other than its clarity of flavour. As Middleton Park House is such a classy establishment they prefer my mother's favourite liqueur; Grand Marnier and boy does it make a difference.

Not only does it lend a luscious glow to the finished cocktail, but the flavour is simply divine. What Cointreau adds to this cocktail is sharpness with an over-riding sweetness; Grand Marnier is quite the opposite offering a subtle softness to this classic cocktail. While this may be advantageous in the short term; it certainly makes this drink one for the long night, whereas its slightly less demur sister generally retires after just one or two appearances.

Better still is the fact that there were very few ill effects following a subtle blending with fine white table wines and champagne. My grand-father always swore by sticking to either the grain or the grape; as did my father and with good reason...

For more information on this classic cocktail, which also happened to be one of Humphrey Bogart's favourites why not head over to The Cocktail Spirit for a quick heads-up with Robert Hess?

Meanwhile, my lips are smarting just at the thought of our evening at Ms T's wedding. The food was fabulous, as was the whole production. The venue is romance itself and with a handful of your closest friends I can't imagine anywhere else in the world that I'd want to get married...

Polly Pierce
Vinca Cards Hand-Made Wedding Stationary & Greeting Cards
ps. I've been invited back to exhibit at their next Wedding Expo on February 8th next year!


Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Housewife Humbled

During this mornings ramble across the blogosphere I paid a little visit to The Humble Housewife and lo & behold found Vinca's-in-tha-Kitchen! on her blog links page! Thank you for that Deborah, I'm thrilled!!! Not only that but I also found a smashing blog; Ice-Cream Ireland dedicated to Ice-creammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...!

As a special treat for all my fellow addicts I'm going to share one of my favourite's with you:


Classic Dark Chocolate Ice-cream (serves 4-6)

Ingredients:

4 egg yolks

3oz caster sugar

1 tsp cornflour

½ pint Semi-skimmed milk

7oz Dark Chocolate

½ pint whipping cream

Shaved chocolate to decorate.

Method:

1 Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in a bowl until thick and foamy. Pour the milk into a saucepan, bring it just to the boil, and then gradually whisk it into the yolk mixture.

2. Return the mixture to the pan and cook over a gentle heat, stirring constantly until the custard thickens and is smooth. Take the pan off the heat.

3. Break the chocolate into small pieces and stir into the hot custard until it has melted. Leave to cool, then chill.

4. By Hand:

  • Whip the cream until it has thickened but still falls from a spoon.
  • Fold into the custard then pour into a plastic tub or similar freezer proof container. Freeze for 6 hours or until firm enough to scoop, beating once or twice with a fork or in a food processor.

Using Ice-cream Maker:

  • Mix the chocolate custard with the whipping cream.
  • Churn until firm enough to scoop.

5. Serve in scoops, decorated with chocolate shavings.

I prefer to use the ice-cream maker as I am a lazy cook, and forgetful with it. However, I don’t make ice-cream very often for much the same reason! Not only that, but I suspect that it is jam packed with hundreds of calories and I really do have to watch what I eat; being 5’ 2” tall every pound shows and a diet of chocolate ice-cream for breakfast, dinner and tea would soon have some very serious consequences.

Taste Test: 10/10

Ease of Preparation: 9/10

Unfortunately I don’t have any nice pictures to show you; we ate it all!!!!

Incidentally, we used milk chocolate for this recipe with a teaspoon of extra Green and Blacks Organic Cocoa. Imagine what we'd be saying if we'd followed the recipe religiously?


Polly Px