Almond Joy Ice Cream

Ahh! Sorry this is late! I hate to disappoint my overflowing population of followers. Lol. Well, anyway. Here is April's ice cream of the month. Almond Joy. But seriously, if you don't LOVE the candy bar you probably won't like this one but if you literally dream about crunching into that nutty center and savoring the Symphony of milk chocolate and sweet coconut...then we're good. This recipe is LOADED. I think there are actually more additives than ice cream.

Ingredients

1 quart whole milk
2 pints heavy cream
3  6oz bags of fresh frozen sweetened shredded coconut (the package said sweetened but I didn't notice it.

10 egg yolks
2 cups sugar

1 TBSP pure vanilla extract
2 TBSP imitation coconut extract

2 cups chopped almonds (I can never find them chopped so I buy them whole and chop them myself. ) (big pea sized chunks make it more like the candy bar.)
2 or 3 cans Hershey hot fudge ice cream topping (do not heat)

Instructions

Chill a large bowl in an ice water bath by filling a larger bowl halfway with ice and water; set aside.

Combine cream, milk and coconut in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat and set aside.

Whisk egg yolks in a large bowl until smooth. Gradually add 2 cups sugar and whisk until mixture is pale yellow and thickened, about 3 minutes.

Very gradually pour about a quarter of the cream mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so the hot mixture doesn’t scramble the eggs. (Temper it carefully because due to the coconut we will not be straining it.)

Pour cream-egg mixture back into the saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the spoon, about 10 minutes. (When you draw your finger across the spoon, it should make a mark through the mixture, which should not run back in on itself.)

Pour mixture into the chilling bowl prepared. Stir in vanilla and coconut extract, alow it to cool to room temperature, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove cream mixturet base from the ice bath, cover, and place in the refrigerator until completely chilled, at least 3 hours.

Churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Stir in the chopped almonds.  Allow ice cream to fully set in the freezer over night in an air tight container. Don't use a deep freeze for the initial setting. It seems to mess with the texture.

Remove fully set ice cream from freezer and spread the chocolate topping over the ice cream. Freeze till topping hardened(a few hours). Remove again and fold it together until the chocolate is well marbled into the ice cream. Pack it down firmly and service or replace in freezer

The ice cream will keep in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 1 week.

Thanks for reading. Coming soon is fresh strawberry ice cream.

Rich Chocolate Ice Cream

When I asked my son what kind of ice cream I should make for his birthday, I was ecstatic to hear that he wanted chocolate. Back in January when I made ferrero rochet ice cream I found an amazing recipe for rich chocolate ice cream but with the added nutella it was just too sweet but without additives it has all the flavor and richness you could ever want. Go ahead, put it to the test. The original recipe (linked above) disappointingly only makes 1 quart. The way I see it is if I'm going to spend hours cooking and churning and waiting for it to set, 1 quart is just not going to cut it. So I calculated the ingredients around a quart of cream and a quart of milk  in order to utilized my ice cream maker to its fullest. Multiplied by 2.6 and rounded appropriately, I came up with this recipe.

Ingredients

4 cups whole milk
4 cups cream
1 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
10 oz semisweet chocolate finely chopped( I use mini morsels)

2 cups sugar
10 egg yolks

2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

1 Prepare an ice water bath by filling a large bowl halfway with ice and water; set aside. Set a fine-mesh strainer over a large heatproof bowl and set aside.

2 Combine cream and milk in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa powder until incorporated. Add chocolate and whisk until completely melted and smooth; set aside.

3 Whisk egg yolks in a large bowl until smooth. Gradually add sugar and whisk until mixture is pale yellow and thickened, about 3 minutes. Slowly pour about a quarter of the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so the hot mixture doesn’t scramble the eggs.

4 Pour chocolate-egg mixture back into the saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the spoon, about 5 minutes. (When you draw your finger across the spoon, it should make a mark through the mixture, which should not run back in on itself.)

5 Remove from heat and strain through the prepared fine-mesh strainer. Stir vanilla extract into the chocolate base, then set the bowl over the ice bath to cool to room temperature, about 15 to 20 minutes.

6 Remove the chocolate base from the ice bath, cover, and place in the refrigerator until completely chilled, at least 3 hours or overnight. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The ice cream will keep in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 1 week.

It was great. The whole family loved it. Thanks for reading. I haven't actually decided what flavor to make in April. Feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments.

Ferrero Rocher Ice Cream

Okay. I made Ferrer Rocher ice cream. It took me two trys to perfect it (otherwise I'd have actually posted this in January) but wow, it is amazing. I first found an incredibly delicious chocolate ice cream recipe online but when I added the hazelnuts and Nutella it was just to sweet. So, I proceeded to try it again with less sugar and semisweet chocolate,  this time doubling the recipe, when I realize I'm a half a cup short on cream. So, I just went along messuring the ratios to my best estament and toned it down appropriately. Now I can call it my own recipe. Yea! As for the first one I tryed, I shall not divulge that recipe until march because my son wants chocolate ice cream on his birthday. It's much more rich and fudgy than my adaptation. (pst, the Ferrero Rocher ice cream is still VERY rich. It has pieces of Nutella in it for cryin' out loud.)

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream ( do not whip)
2 1/2 cups whole milk
1 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

6 large egg yolks
1 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup Nutella hazelnut spread
1/3 cup finely chopped hazelnuts

Directions

Prep
Place Nutella in a small ziplock bag, flatten and freeze. Prepare an ice water bath by filling a large bowl halfway with ice and water; set aside. Set a fine-mesh strainer over a large heatproof bowl and set aside.

1 Combine cream and milk in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa powder until incorporated. Add chocolate chips and whisk until completely melted and smooth; set aside.

2 Whisk egg yolks in a large bowl until smooth. Gradually add sugar and whisk until mixture is pale yellow and thickened, about 3 minutes. Slowly pour about a quarter of the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so the hot mixture doesn’t scramble the eggs.

3 Pour chocolate-egg mixture back into the saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the spoon, about 5 minutes. (When you draw your finger across the spoon, it should make a mark through the mixture, which should not run back in on itself.)

4 Remove from heat and strain through the prepared fine-mesh strainer. Stir vanilla extract into the chocolate base, then set the bowl over the ice bath to cool to room temperature, about 15 to 20 minutes.

5 Remove the chocolate base from the ice bath, cover, and place in the refrigerator until completely chilled, at least 3 hours or overnight. Churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Freeze in an airtight container 3 hours.

6 This next part must be done quickly so the ice cream and nutella do not melt too much though it will melt a little. Remove Nutella from freezer, tare out of the bag and chop with a knife into blueberries sized pieces. Scoop ice cream into a generously sized bowl ( give yourself some mixing room) put hazlenuts and nutella pieces into the ice cream and stir to an even consistency. Replace in freezer till ice cream is fully set (probably over night) The ice cream will keep in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 1 week.

Thanks for reading. I know you'll enjoy this one. February is going to be Strawberry Ice Cream and as I said before, March will be Rich Chocolate. Please feel free to comment any suggestions for flavors or for any other reason. ♡

Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream

l know that I'm late in posting this but here is my October recipe for pumpkin spice ice cream. As usual I started with the milk, cream and sugar base. (Though I'm considering trying a stove top, custard like method in the future to improve the creaminess). So, this time I just poured a can of pumpkin in with some wonderful spices and flavors. I was so excited when I found whole vanilla beans at Costco. I loved using it for this recipe.

1 quart whole milk
2 cups granulated sugar
1 quart (2 pints ) heavy whipping cream
29oz can of 100% pure pumpkin
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
2 tsp cloves
1 TBSP cinnamon
1 vanilla bean pod ( here is a link to a YouTube demo I found showing how to use vanilla bean.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bICPn7Ifrh8&feature=youtube_gdata_player   DO NOT USE THE WHOLE POD!)
3 TBSP Vanilla extract

I mixed the spices and vanilla bean together first to smell if I liked the ratios. Feel free to spice and flavor to taste. I realize that vanilla is very expensive. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to substitute with more extract.

Churn as instructed on your household ice cream maker and freeze.

I hope you and your family will enjoy the ice cream as much as me and mine. Next is mincemeat in November. Don't nock it before you try it. ;) See you soon.

We all scream for ice cream!

This last summer while my sister was over at my house, she noticed an ice cream maker I have had for several years but have never used and said "I should get mine out and use it". I had always wanted to make my own ice cream. My parents sometimes did when I was a kid. So we decided to make some for Independence Day weekend. She made root beer and I made fresh strawberry. They were both delicious.

Since then, I have made pistachio with heath bar bits for my birthday (amazing if I do say so myself), raspberry with chocolate swirls (well, sort of. I have since then learned to let it fully freeze beforer mixing in the chocolate) and an attempt at a fried ice cream flavor involving cinnamon toast chrunch.(not as bad as it might sound). Needless to say,  ice cream making is kind of my thing right now.

I am determined and now committed through this blog to come out with a new flavor each month for the next full year. Of course I'm going to share the recipes! I haven't planed out the whole year yet but here is my plan for the next 4 months.

September-  Apple crisp

October- Pumpkin spice

November- Mincemeat (yep, thats right)

December- Ferrero roche

There are many different ways to make ice cream. Some involve eggs and the stove top. Others use sweetened condensed milk. I however have made peace with one simple milk, sugar and cream base using a typical house hold motorized ice cream maker and this is how it goes.

1 quart whole milk

2 cups granulated sugar

1 quart (2 pints ) heavy whipping cream (do NOT whip the cream. I did that with my pistachio and it had chuncks of cream at the bottom)

Typically you will want to add at least some amount of vanilla to any recipe, even fruit flavors.

I've just made this month's caramel apple crisp. Tee hee. It was fun.

First I opened my BHG cook book and put apples in a simple fruit crisp recipe and refrigerated it over night. Here is a link to that recipe. http://www.bhg.com/recipe/cobbler/choose-a-fruit-crisp/

Next I made the above said ice cream base (actually, I substituted 2% for whole milk but it would have been better with whole milk) with a glurple of vanilla,  if you don't know what a glurple is, ask your mom or your grandma. If that still doesn't work for you, I'm guessing it was a couple of tablespoons.

Follow the direction on your ice cream maker. You'll need crushed ice and ice cream salt (aka rock salt). I also stirred in some cinnamon before freezing. After freezing it for a few hours I stirred the crisp into the soft ice cream and then put it back into the freezer over night. When the ice cream was fully set, I scooped it into another bowl, poured caramel ice cream topping over it, mixed it gently and packed it down. And that's it!

I hope you have fun trying it and come back for more. This next year of ice cream making is going to be SWEET!

Move It or Lose It!

If you're a busy mom like me, you may feel like you don't have time to work out or to focus on your body. WRONG. In fact, if you don't take some time out to strengthen and tone your muscles, you'll soon have a decrease in energy and an increase in stress. So, picture this. You just finished cleaning up after breakfast. Now, how hard is it to do this?

Or, this?

Or, even this?

Just take like five minutes or so to feel the burn. And don't forget to tuck in that tummy. also, try using dish rinsing time to focus on keeping a tight solid core and improving your posture. At the end of each day, I always turn on some up beat music and have a race with my kids to tidy up the house before the song is over. When I put my all into it, I get an extra chance to raise my heart rate and to teach my children to clean as hard as they play. I hope this helps. Have fun and kiss those kiddos.

Welcome

Hi, my name is Kate. Welcome to the Happy Woman's club. I love to do thing to enrich my life, my family and my home. I also know some other wonderful women who do as well. I will let the other writers introduce themselves. As I have observed the differences and similarities in the lives of my friends and I, I got to thinking how helpful we could all be to each other and the world. I am a single parent, a home maker and a caregiver to a dear friend of mine. I also contribute to the crafting blog mysister-andme.blogspot.com which is run by my sister Sarah and I. My hope is that the Happy Woman's club will be filled with personal experiences, tutorials, goals, advice, tips even coupons. This is a place for us as women to take the best of what life offers us and share it with the world. I hope you enjoy the club and join us for lots of fun and useful posts.

Kate Wright