Archive for June, 2009
Even since I had an amazingly delicious coconut ice cream in Paris, I’ve wanted to make up a batch of it at home. That ice cream was amazing, creamy and full of shredded coconut. There are lots of coconut ice cream recipes out there to choose from, but since I wanted to maximize the coconut flavor in mine, I wanted to choose a recipe that used coconut milk, either in addition to cream or instead of it. I ended up trying the coconut ice cream from The Vegan Scoop. The cookbook is all vegan/nondairy ice creams and their coconut caught my eye because it only used coconut milk (not soy milk and, being a vegan book, obviously not any cream), as well as shredded coconut.
The ice cream was easy to make and turned out to be delicious. It was creamy and smooth, and seemed to taste a little lighter and more refreshing than some other coconut ice creams I’ve tried. It froze and softened up again (for seconds) nicely, without getting icy or turning into a sorbet-like consistency. The ice cream uses arrowroot starch as a thickener, not eggs. You could get away with using cornstarch as a thickener in its place if you don’t want to buy a batch just to try this recipe. That said, if you’re planning to try others from the book – they all look good – it might be worth picking up a small bag, since all the recipes call for this thickener.
I made a few small changes to the recipe as it was written. I used 800 ml coconut milk instead of the 825 ml called for in the original recipe because my cans of coconut milk each hold 400 ml, and I didn’t want to open another can just for a few tablespoons of liquid. I didn’t add coconut extract, as was suggested to boost the coconut flavor, to see how the natural flavor stood out on its own. I also doubled the amount of shredded coconut that I mixed into the ice cream. I love the chewiness that the coconut adds and you can’t beat the flavor. Unsweetened and sweetened coconut will both work in this recipe. It’s not particularly sweet on its own, and sweetened coconut will not make it too sweet if you choose to use it.
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If you’re baking a cake or bread, and you know that you’re going to need to remove it from the pan after baking, it’s a good idea to try and make the task as easy as possible. You can grease the pan well, which is effective, but it is best to line the pan with parchment paper that won’t stick to either the pan or the cake. To line a pan with parchment paper, you need to tear a sheet off of your roll that is larger than the base of your pan, then cut it down to fit. There is a technique to doing this that is not difficult, but it does result in a lot of wasted parchment paper and adds a few minutes of prep work. I don’t mind doing it, especially when I only have one or two cakes to do. But if you’re baking a lot of cakes or are otherwise short on time, you can buy Pre-Cut Parchment Paper Rounds in a variety of different sizes. They come out of the bag and ready to fit 8-in, 9-in and other size pans.
They’re inexpensive and cut down on wasted parchment. The only downside is that you can’t easily cut these into different pan sizes, so you’ll either have to have some parchment sheets on hand or a roll of parchment tucked away somewhere if you think that you’ll need to line any square or rectangular pans in the near future.
Red, white and blue paper plates and napkins do their part in adding to the festiveness of a 4th of July celebration, but it’s always nice to be a little patriotic with the food, too. Barbecue, whether you’re making ribs, burgers or hot dogs, is a good place to start. You can infuse a little more color into the meal when you come around to dessert.
Red and white are easy colors to infuse into dessert, with fresh berries, ice cream and whipped cream. blue is a little tougher. Gelatin is almost a staple for blue desserts, since it is one of the few foods that is easy to find in a true blue color. Jigglers are fun to make – especially if you have kids – but otherwise just go with a color close to “true blue” or keep your food coloring handy. Here are some bright red, white and blue dessert ideas to finish off your 4th of July feast as you wait for the fireworks to start.
- Red, White and Blue Velvet Cake is a multi-layer cake with tiers of blue and red velvet cakes. The cake may be an unusual color, but it is very festive, moist and fluffy. White frosting brings everything together.
- Strawberry Buttermilk Shortcakes have red and white covered, with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Add in some blueberries to make it fit the Independence Day theme
- Fresh Strawberry Pie is another dessert that makes use of fresh berries to bring a brilliant red color to the table. This dessert is easy to make and tastes just as good as it looks.
- Little Blueberry Upside Down Cakes have blue covered, with a layer of juicy berries on top. These are like cupcakes, with berries instead of the frosting. They’re great for serving a crowd since each is a single-serving and can eaten by hand.
- Other great options include Fresh Strawberry Frozen Yogurt, Fresh Blueberry Tart, Strawberry Mascarpone Cream Puffs, and Berry-Topped Pavlova, all of which take further advantage of in-season summer fruits.
If you need to serve a really big crowd, a Cupcake Flag (pictured above) is a great option. You can make it as big as you need to, whether you’re going to serve 36 cupcakes or 136. To infuse some extra color into your cupcakes, try making rainbow cupcakes with just red, white and blue layers, then using those cakes as the base for the flag.
Arrowroot, or arrowroot starch, is a powdery product made from the arrowroot plant, a starchy tropical root. The plant is dried and ground up to make the powder, which is primarily used as a thickener in the kitchen, much like cornstarch. Much like cornstarch, it is an excellent thickening agent. It has about twice the thickening power of regular flour. Unlike cornstarch, however, arrowroot is completely flavorless and will not impart a starchy taste into puddings or other dishes that it is used to thicken.
Another reason that arrowroot is called for in recipes is that it is extremely digestible, moreso than regular wheat flour. It can be used in cookies and crackers as a substitute for part of the flour, and you can find “arrowroot biscuits” in stores that are often said to sooth the stomach. It is also a very popular ingredient in gluten-free baking. Still, it’s primary use is as a thickener. To use it, it must be mixed with some cold water before being added to a hot liquid to prevent clumping. Arrowroot can be found at some specialty grocers and can also be ordered online.
When I was a kid, I liked to dip fresh strawberries into a little bit of sugar before I ate them. When they were still damp from being washed, the sugar clung perfectly to the berries and having a little bit of sugar made not-quite-perfect berries taste amazing. I didn’t use a lot, just enough to kiss the berries. I would eat the strawberries that looked the sweetest and darkest without sugar. This fresh strawberry pie reminds me of eating those sugar-sprinkled berries, made with fresh strawberries that are lightly glazed with a sugar-kissed strawberry sauce that holds everything together.
This is a recipe that I first made several years ago after finding it on the back of a box of cornstarch. I like it because it doesn’t use gelatin, which I tend to think takes away from the flavor and texture of the strawberries, but is frequently used in no-bake strawberry pies. The strawberries are layered into a pie crust – I like graham and shortbread, but any 9-inch crust will work – and topped with a sauce made from strawberry puree and sugar. The glossy red of the pie looks great and it tastes very fresh. The topping tastes great and doesn’t have a gelatiny feel to it, although it does a wonderful job of holding the berries in place and making the pie easy to slice.
You can’t use frozen berries for this pie, since they just don’t have the same texture as fresh. That said, you can actually use frozen berries to make the topping portion of the recipe and use fresh for the bulk of the pie. It goes without saying that you should use the best tasting fresh berries you can find for this pie, since they’re mostly unadorned. Wash and dry them well before using. And, if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to pick up some extra strawberries when you’re at the market, because if they’re ripe and sweet enough to put into the pie, I guarantee you’re going to want to snack on some while you work!
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