It is great to have an ice cream maker at home if you’re a big ice cream lover. Homemade ice cream, straight out of the machine, is something that is hard to beat with storebought products. It’s also fun because it is so easy to customize the ice cream with your favorite mix-ins, whether you like to add crushed up Oreo cookies or a swirl of caramel sauce. There are some ice cream recipes out there that you can make without an ice cream maker and still get outstanding results. One recipe that comes to mind uses sweetened condensed milk as a base and has whipped heavy cream folded into it, which adds the air that is normally incorporated into ice cream by an ice cream mixer. It’s easy to make, works out extremely well and, of course, uses no special equipment of any kind.
No-Churn Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream is this type of recipe. It starts out with a mixture of sweetened condensed milk, chocolate sauce, vanilla and peppermint extracts. Heavy cream is beaten to soft peaks and folded into the base. The resulting ice cream has an almost mousse-like consistency that just melts when it hits your tongue. It has a light chocolate flavor with just enough mint added to it. It is light and creamy, and it is never too hard to scoop straight out of the freezer. I have used homemade chocolate sauce when making this ice cream, but it is honestly just as good with a good quality chocolate or chocolate fudge sauce to use as flavoring (because you know you have some for homemade sundaes).
I typically fold small chocolate chips or coarsely chopped dark chocolate into this ice cream before freezing it. If you have mint chocolate baking pieces, which are sometimes available in grocery stores, or chopped mint chocolate bars, they will work even better and get a little more mint into your finished product.
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Culinary school isn’t for everyone – no matter how appealing it sounds to be able to work with top chefs, improve your skills and learn to create really top-quality dishes – because most people don’t intend to become professional chefs and the time and cost involved in attending a full time school just isn’t worth it when you cook recreationally. That said, there are many at-home chefs who want their skills to be on-par with those of “real” chefs and one way to learn those techniques, recipes and skills is by signing up for an online cooking school. Online cooking schools have sprung up over the past couple of years, offering anyone with a computer and a good internet connection the chance to watch video lessons on everything from basic knife skills to roasting the perfect chicken. These schools are intended to give you a solid base in these skills, not just to entertain you with stories (like most food tv shows do). They’re less expensive than full time culinary school and can be done on your own schedule.
The Wall Street Journal recently took an in depth look at three online culinary schools to see how their online classes – which are aimed at home cooks looking to get culinary school skills – compared and whether they were worth the investment: Top Chef University, Rouxbe and Culinary Institute of America Prochef Podcasts.
- Top Chef University got a thumbs up for their impressive range of subjects, with more than 235 lessons and over 60 hours of video content. The instructors vary by lesson (former Top Chef cast members), but the skills demonstrated were all detailed and lessons were packed with useful tips. The classes are broken into 12 courses and you’re encouraged to complete them in order. It was $199.95 for one year/$24.95 per month for one course at a time.
- Rouxbe is an online only school with more than 75 classes and over 1,000 videos. They were praised for their polished videos, attention to detail and very thorough lessons that walked you through every detail of the techniqes. A discussion forum with staff and other users provided a classroom-like atmosphere, too. $299.95 for one year/ $4.99 per lesson for 90 day access or $9.99 per lesson for lifetime access.
- Culinary Institute of America Prochef Podcasts were not organized into neat courses to follow like the other schools. Instead, these engaging videos allowed you the freedom to pick and choose what topics you were most interested in without being encouraged to view them in a certain order. All videos were taught by CIA instructors, though there were no quizzes, etc. like the other schools offer and no way to really track your progress. $4.95 per podcast
The WSJ didn’t really rank these schools because with their different styles they will appeal to people looking for different things. They’re all worth checking out, however, to get a little bit of that culinary school skill set without leaving your own home.
Salted caramels are one of the most addictive snacks out there. Adding salt to sweet, buttery caramels creates just the right balance between sweet and salty and makes your mouth water (in a good way!) while eating them. I often buy these treats when I see them at stores, but it is not too difficult to make sea salt-topped caramels at home – and having a good from-scratch recipe means that you can have them any time you want! These Homemade Sea Salt Caramels are buttery caramels that are topped with a generous sprinkling of coarse sea salt. These are soft and chewy, with a nice balance of sweetness and salt. You will want a candy thermometer to ensure that you get good results, but this is a relatively easy homemade candy recipe that is definitely worth trying.
There is a small amount of salt in the caramels to flavor them, but I saved the sea salt in these caramels for the topping. Although some sea salt caramels will use sea salt in the caramel itself, I found that I didn’t notice a real flavor difference when I used the sea salt in the recipe. There is, however, a huge difference between putting table salt and coarse or flaky sea salt on top of these and it is worth getting the good stuff! Any coarse sea salt that you like will work well. I personally recommend flaky Maldon Sea Salt, which has a great flavor, excellent texture and a beautiful look.
Once the caramel is prepared, you can pour it into a 9×9 glass or pyrex baking dish. The 9×9 makes caramels of a nice thickness, but if you want to make your caramels smaller (or just make a lot more of them), you can also use a 9×13 pan and get thinner caramels. Do not forget to grease the pan with butter (or vegetable oil, though I recommend butter here) before adding the caramel! The first caramel may get slightly squished when you pry it out of the pan, but the caramels generally come out easily if you remove them immediately after slicing. Use a very sharp, warm (run under hot water and dried) knife for best results.
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You won’t find too many bar cookies out there that look as festive as these Cranberry and Pistachio Squares. These bar cookies are studded with bright green pistachio nuts and are bursting with whole, red cranberries. On the lightly colored cookie background, the red and green pop out vividly – and that will definitely make you want to reach out and grab a square for a taste.
The bars look similar to blondies, but are much more tender than your average blondie is. They’re soft and a little bit crumbly, with a thin, crisp topping of coarse sugar. Whole cranberries – you can use fresh or frozen – are coarsely chopped and added into the bars. They are not only brightly colored, but their bright and tangy flavor comes through clearly. It also makes the bars seem very fresh and really makes them stand out from bar cookies that only use dried cranberries. Pistachios are incorporated into the dough alongside the cranberries and a few of them are also sprinkled on top to add some texture.
I prefer using lightly salted pistachios for this recipe because it adds just a hint of saltiness to the topping of these squares (you will not notice any extra salt in the bars themselves). It’s a nice contrast to the coarse sugar that is also sprinkled on top. I also happen to prefer eating lightly salted pistachios. If you prefer unsalted, they will work just as well in the recipe and you will still get bars with a delicious combination of cranberries and pistachios.
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