M and M Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream

I made this Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream from Chocolate Covered Katie.  The recipe suggests using raisins, but I'm not a fan of raisins so I used 1/3 c M and M's.

How in the world do they make M and M ice cream that doesn't wind up puce colored?  Because it's homemade ice cream, it always winds up rock hard. So, you've got to either let the ice cream sit and thaw on the counter or nuke it a bit on defrost before you can scoop it.   If you don't you'll end up with a broken spoon or ice cream container.  Not that I've learned from experience or anything.

When you let ice cream with M and M's sit out, the color melts off the candies.  And they bleed.  Leaving you with a hot mess of ice cream.

Not unlike our friend here.

via

It's not a pretty sight. 

Ack!  I wasn't going to show you that.  And this was the GOOD picture.  From the first day that I made it.  By the third time it had thawed and refroze...shudder...well let's just say I ate it with my eyes closed.

Luckily, the ice cream was tasty!  I made it with unsweetened almond milk.  Not cause I'm against milk or anything.  I love milk.  Dairy does not love me.  I can only consume a small amount and I choose to eat that in cheese.  (Cheese makes the world go round!  Anyone else ever sing that song?) I can make my own non dairy ice cream, but it's a lot harder to make my own non dairy blue cheese.

I think this tastes just like an oatmeal cookie in ice cream form.  I'd love to ramp this up next time by adding oatmeal cookie dough pieces too it.   I'd also leave the M and M's out to avoid the disgusting color swirls.

Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream from Chocolate Covered Katie
2 2/3 c milk of choice, or creamer
1/3 c oat flour ( grind rolled oats to powder in a food processor. Measure after blending.)
 1/2 t salt
1/4 t baking soda (for flavor; can be omitted)
1/2 t cinnamon
1/3 c raisins (or other add in just beware that your M and M's will bleed)
1/2 c brown sugar
 3 T sugar
2 T “butter” (Dairy or non dairy)
1 t vanilla

Combine all ingredients except vanilla (Do include raisins, but not M & Ms or they will melt), Nuke 3 1/2 min, stir, and nuke another 2 min. Add vanilla.  Chill in fridge til cold again (about 4 hrs). Pour into ice cream maker and churn per manufacture instructions.  Transfer to an airtight container. (Fold in M and M's at this point if using.) Freeze for about an hour.  If you choose to freeze this longer than an hour, it will be very hard and you will need to let it defrost for a bit before servin.

A Nearly Festive Ice Cream - For the Rest of Us

I was never a big fan of Seinfeld before it was syndicated. However, for a long time I didn't have cable/satellite, so that was the only thing to veg out to. Needless to say, I've watched more episodes than I care to admit, for a show I don't even like.

Anyhow, there was one episode where they talk about Festivus, an alternative holiday to the commercial aspect of Christmas. Ben and Jerry's even made a special limited edition ice cream named after this fictional holiday.

It was a brown sugar ice cream with gingerbread cookies and a ginger caramel swirl.  You really had to be a fan of gingerbread to like this flavor.  Apparently, it was not a popular flavor with the masses as they stopped releasing batches, even over the seasonally appropriate wintertime.

I was pretty lukewarm about this flavor.  I liked it well enough to eat it when it was around, but if I had another ice cream flavor choice available, I'd take it.  I wasn't super sad when the flavor was discontinued.  My husband and best friend, on the other hand, were very very put out.  They both LOVED this flavor.

So when I happened upon this Gingerbread ice cream recipe over at Kate's Short and Sweets, I just had to make it.  The ice cream base was obviously not the same as Ben and Jerry's.  I'm fairly certain that their ice cream has an egg base.  That's all fine and dandy as they are professionals.  I don't like to mess around with salmonella.  Go ahead.  Call me chicken.  ::groan:::

I didn't care for the cookie dough recipe that was linked up on Kate's Short and Sweets.  It called for Ener-G egg replacer and frankly, I didn't feel like going on a wild goose chase, just to find one random ingredient.  I settled on using this recipe for egg free gingerbread from Well-fed Everyone to use as cookie dough.

OK.  So the original Ben and Jerry's  Festivus uses actual baked gingerbread bits.  I was afraid that any gingerbread cookie I made would get soggy in the time it takes for the ice cream to set up.  So I went with gingerbread cookie dough instead.

Let me tell you, that cookie dough was awesome. I could not stop eating it.  Even with all my nibbling and snacking, there was enough cookie dough for this batch of ice cream, and another down the road.

Instead of a ginger caramel swirl, I just used dulce de leche that I made in the crockpot.  Truth is, I'm scared of making caramel.  I'm terrified of burning it or myself; I don't have the best of luck with molten sugar.  I played it safe went with what I know.  And I know how dulce de leche in the crockpot tastes.  (Damn good!) If you are feeling adventurous, why not try this basic Ginger caramel sauce from Food and Wine, or this slightly fancier version from My Man's Belly. They both look really good.

So to sum up, while this wasn't an exact copy of the original Festivus ice cream, it was a very tasty facsimile. Make some for the gingerbread lover in your life.  They will thank you for it!

Festivus Fake-y Faker-ton  Ice Cream adapted from Kate's Short and Sweets and Well-Fed Everyone
2 C milk
2 Tbsp molasses
1/2 C brown sugar, divided
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
pinch of salt
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 C cream
1/2 - 1 c frozen gingerbread cookie dough balls
Dulce de leche or other caramel sauce of your choosing (I used about a 3rd of the can)

Add milk, molasses, 1/4 C brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt to a small saucepan. Heat, whisking occasionally, on med til steam rises from milk 3-5 min. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, whisk cornstarch and a couple T cold cream in a small bowl. Whisk away as many lumps as possible.Whisk cornstarch mixture into heated milk, along with remaining 1/4 C brown sugar. Heat, stirring constantly, until thick. This mixture is ready when it thickly coats the back of a spoon and a line drawn across with your finger remains intact, 3-5 minutes.

Cool completely (about 1-2 hours in the fridge), then stir in the remaining cream. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Pour the ice cream into the container you're going to freeze it in.  Fold in the frozen gingerbread dough bits. Drizzle on the caramel and swirl into the ice cream base.  Freeze for about 2 hours or until the ice cream is just set.

Frozen Gingerbread dough bits
1 3/4 c flour
1/4 t salt
1/4 t baking soda
1 tsp gr cinnamon
1/2 t ground ginger
1/4 t ground nutmeg
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 c butter or margarine
1/4 c  brown sugar
1/4 c. unsulphured molasses
2 T water
1/2 t vanilla extract

Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine butter and brown sugar.  Beat until light and fluffy, scraping bowl and paddle occasionally, about 5 min. In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk molasses, water, and vanilla.  Stir into buttery stick mixture (it will separate and look all funky and gross).  Scrape bowl and paddle.  With mixer running on low speed, slowly add dry ingredients until evenly incorporated.  Flatten dough into a disk and refrigerate for at least an hour or up to three days, or freeze for up to three months.  Once the dough is no longer super sticky, roll into small marble sized balls.  Freeze balls on a wax paper lined cookie sheet until they have hardened, about an hour.  Transfer to a freezer safe storage container.

Apple Cider Ice Cream

Do you want to know why I made this Apple Cider Ice Cream from a Sweet Simple Life? Um, because I bought a turkey.  Huh?  Well around Thanksgiving, turkeys were around 40 cents a pound.  That's cheaper than a roaster chicken.  So I bought one to stick in my freezer.

Now, those of you that have a ice cream attachment for your stand mixer know that the freezer bowl takes up a goodly amount of freezer space.  (It takes up about the same space as an 11 pound turkey.) I figured if I had to take the ice cream maker bowl out of the freezer, I'd better put that freeze-y goodness to good use.

I chose this recipe for apple cider ice cream, not only because it sounded tasty, but because I had all the ingredients on hand.

The taste of the ice cream was very surprising to me.  Mainly because I think for some reason I was expecting it to taste like apple pie.  I don't know why.  It's not like it's called apple pie ice cream.  It's Apple CIDER Ice Cream.  Duh.  Once I got in my head what the ice cream was supposed to taste like, I really enjoyed it.

So far I have tried it plain, with granola, and with cinnamon.  So far I like the cinnamon topped version the best.  Some other suggestions for toppings I've thought of are: warm honey, crushed gingersnaps, warm cinnamon apples, caramel sauce, pralines, or crumbled pie crusts with cinnamon.

Finally, this is a very soft and smooth ice cream. Even after several days in the freezer it is still very easy to scoop. This is unlike most of the other ice creams I've made where they are hard as a brick after 2 days.   Also, milk based ice cream tends to be a bit grittier than the cream based versions.  This ice cream was a lot smoother and creamier than the other ice creams I've made with skim milk.  What a pleasant surprise!

Apple Cider Ice Cream adapted from a Sweet Simple Life
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 packet of instant apple cider (I used Alpine Spiced Apple Cider)
2 cups dairy (I used skim milk)

In a small bowl combine all ingredients and pour into ice cream maker following your manufacturers instructions.  Or if you don't have a ice cream maker: Combine the condensed milk, vanilla and cider mix.  In a separate, larger bowl beat the whipping cream (gotta use the cream cause milk won't hold the volume properly for this version,)  until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold in half of the condensed milk mix into the whipped cream.  Then stir in the other half until combined.  Pour into a shallow container and freeze overnight.

Chocolate Chambord and White Chip Ice Cream

This Chocolate and baileys gelato from The Shoebox Kitchen was ALMOST an epic fail. But as we all know, almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

First, I'm not exactly certain what gelato is.  It seems like it has to do with how slow it is churned?  Since I churned this like anything else,  I guess it is ice cream, except that it doesnt have cream so its not. Let's just say it's a frozen dairy concoction as Iced Skim Milk doesn't have as nice of a ring to it.

Sure the recipe says to use whole milk and heavy cream, but, I know this is going to come as a complete and udder shock to you...I used skim.  I am nothing if not consistent.  I also used Chambord instead of Baileys.  I would have loved to use Baileys because Baileys ice cream is da bomb.  But, sadly, no Baileys in the house.  We had Malibu, Kahlua, and Chambord.  Malibu sounded gross, and while Mrblocko would have LUVed the Kahlua version, Blockette and I would have liked it not so much.  So raspberry yumalicious Chambord it was.

Now the Chambord got all weird when it hit the heat. It was almost like it turned into gritty candy.  A gritty candy that wasn't pleasant tasting.  I have no idea what it was that made it get all weird like that. Maybe the coloring was the culprit?  The booze was old?  I have no luck boiling things other than water?  Your guess is as good as mine.

I had already committed myself to making this ice cream, so I strained the chambord-sugar-milk mixture before combining it with the chocolatey milk mixture.  I gave it a taste test before I sent it to the fridge to chill and it seemed good.  Really good.

I was still worried the texture would be off.  Maybe the strainer didn't catch all the weird gritty bits?  I wanted to do something to counter act the potential non smoothness of the end product.

Earlier in the week I had made bars that were supposed to have white chocolate drizzled on top.  The chocolate seized up as I was drizzling it and refused to attach itself to the bars. I thought I could salvage the chocolate for some other purpose so I just picked off the stubborn white chocolate from the bars.  This ice cream seemed like the perfect use for the wonky chocolate.  White chocolate is best buddies with raspberry.  So I chopped up the white chocolate into fine little bits about half the size (or smaller) of mini chocolate chips.  I added the white chocolate bits to the ice cream in the last 5 minutes of the churning process.

One nice side effect of using booze in ice cream is that your ice cream never fully solidifies.  It remains nice and scoop-able even after a week in the chill chest. No worries about ruining your plastic ice cream containers here!

The ice cream tasted just heavenly.  If there were any texture issues, the white chocolate bits hid them well.  I thought this ice cream was incredibly rich.  I can only imagine how much richer it would taste if I had used cream! 

P.S. Mrblocko wants me to tell you that this is his most favorite ice cream that I have made so far.  Which, I think is saying something because I think all the ice creams I've made have kicked butt.


Chocolate and Baileys Gelato from The Shoebox Kitchen
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup Baileys Irish Cream (oh yeah)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup turbinado sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Pinch of salt

Before you get started, make an ice bath by placing ice cubes in a large mixing bowl, adding water, then placing another smaller mixing bowl into the bath. The smaller mixing bowl should be able to hold about 6 cups of liquid. Measure out your liquids. Measure out your sugar and cocoa powder, as well as your corn starch. In a mixing bowl, pour your whole milk, salt, corn starch, and cocoa powder. Whisk vigorously to combine and dissolve the solids as much as possible. Make sure there is no dry cocoa left floating in the mixture. Set aside.

Bring the two creams and sugar to a hard simmer in a medium heavy bottom saucepan, whisking frequently. Remove from heat and add the whole milk mixture. Whisk to mix thoroughly, then return to heat and bring back to a hard simmer, whisking constantly. Once simmering, continue to whisk and cook the mixture for another 5 minutes, or until you feel the mixture thickening (much like making a pudding). Transfer the chocolatey amazingness to your ice bath bowl and continue to whisk until you see no more steam coming from the amazingness. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cooled completely, about 4 hours or overnight (when we’re really impatient we sneak it into the freezer for about an hour). Churn the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the instructions, usually about 20 minutes. Transfer to a chilled container (we like using ceramic loaf pans – they are the perfect size and their shape allows for easier scooping) and place in the freezer overnight (if you can wait).

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Swirl Ice Cream

MMMM. Peanut butter ice cream.  Blockette says this is the best ice cream ever because of all the chunks of peanut buttery goodness.  She is right.  The chunks of peanut butter are AWESOME!

This recipe was created as a copy cat by Kelly Neil for Baskin Robbin's Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream.  I'd have to say it was pretty spot on.  I used a combination of half and half and milk instead of cream, so I'm sure that was why it wasn't closer to the original.  Cream makes everything, well creamier.  But my weak milky version was still filled with peanut butter and chocolate-y ice cream goodness.

The only bad thing about this recipe was that after a few days the ice cream sets up like concrete in the freezer.  To solve this problem you can:
A. Eat all the ice cream in one sitting.
B. Not eat any more ice cream and whine about it.
C. Break out a jack hammer.
D. Set the ice cream on the counter for 10 minutes while you clean up the dinner mess.

I'll let you choose.  I will warn you that if you pick option c, you're probably gonna break whatever container you've stored your ice cream in so keep that in mind.  If you're lucky, you'll find that same container you used to freeze your ice cream in on sale at the store the next time you go shopping.  Not that I'd know anything about that.


Baskin Robbin's-Style Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream from Kelly Neil
2 Cups Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Cocoa
pinch of Salt
1/2 Cup Smooth Peanut Butter
1-2 Tbsp Icing Sugar

Whisk cream, coca, sugar and salt in a saucepan to a full roiling boil (should be foamy) - chill. Mix PB and icing sugar together (adjust amount of icing sugar to taste - I used 2 Tbsp).  Churn chocolate batter in an ice cream maker.  In a container, layer churned batter with dollops of PB - freeze.

Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Feast your eyes on that baby. That little masterpiece, my friends, is Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream from Ezra Pound Cake. Aw yeah.

Not bad for my second attempt at ice cream.

This ice cream tastes exactly like what it says it is. Strawberry cheesecake, in ice cream goodness. Have mercy.

This ice cream takes a tinsy bit more work than your average ice cream as you have to bake a graham cracker crust, and let it get cold in the fridge.  It's worth it though.  Trust me.  That crust is half the cheesecake party in your mouth.

This recipe calls for the zest of one lemon and 1/2 c frozen berries.  I omitted both of them.  I didn't have a lemon and Mrblocko and I aren't big fans of huge chunks of fruit in our ice cream.  The next time I make this I'm going to add the lemon zest to see if it adds anything special to the mix.  As for the fruit, I think if I put frozen berries into a blender to chop them up, that might be ok.  Although, then I'd have to worry about seeds.  I don't want no stinkin' seeds in my ice cream.  Maybe a chunkier seedless jam verses a jelly would be a better route to take.

In case anyone is wondering, I used full fat versions of both cream cheese and sour cream.  I was worried if I altered the fat content, the ice cream might not set up properly.  Next time I think I'll risk a low fat version.

It's such a shame that I've got to do some more experimenting with this recipe.  Oh the things we do in the name of food.

Mixed Berry Cheesecake Ice Cream from Ezra Pound Cake Makes about 3 cups
Graham Cracker Crumble:
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 5 crackers)
1/2 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Ice Cream:
Zest of 1 lemon
8 ounces cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup half-and-half
2/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup red jelly (strawberry, raspberry or currant), warmed in the microwave until melted
1/2 cup frozen berries

For the Ice Cream: Place lemon zest in a food processor .Cut cream cheese into small pieces, and add it to lemon zest. Then add sour cream, half-and-half, sugar and salt. Blend til smooth.
Transfer mix to a bowl, cover it, and chill in refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

For the Graham Cracker Crumble: Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter til moistened. Transfer to a 9" springform pan, pie plate or cake pan. Press crumbs into bottom of pan. (Don’t worry if they don’t cover the entire bottom of the pan.) Bake 7 min. Cool to room temperature. Using a fork, gently break crust into small crumbs. Set aside.

Once the ice cream mix chilled for at least 4 hours, freeze in ice cream maker according to  manufacturer’s instructions. During last few minutes of churning, add 1/4 c Graham Cracker Crumble.
As transfer ice cream from machine to a freezer-safe container, place half of ice cream into  container. Sprinkle half of frozen berries onto ice cream, followed by a few spoonfuls of melted jelly to create a thin layer over the ice cream. (Do not stir.) Then spoon rest of ice cream over jelly. Sprinkle  remaining berries on top and a few spoonfuls of Graham Cracker Crumble. Place a layer of plastic wrap over ice cream, fasten a lid on container, and place container in freezer for at least 4 hours before serving.

To serve, top ice cream with any remaining Graham Cracker Crumble. Or, make a topping for the ice cream by warming leftover jelly in microwave and tossing remaining berries in jelly til well mixed.

Cake Batter Ice Cream

It was pink. It was creamy.  It was cold.  It was just plain good.  So, how in the world did I manage to not get a picture of the first ice cream I ever made?  I haven't a clue.  It's just not right.  Of course I realized this on the day that I, personally, ate the last of my wonderful frozen concoction.  I can't even blame it on my husband.  I mean I guess I could.  I'm sure if I thought long and hard about it it would somehow be his fault.  So let's just go with that.  ::shakes fist at Mrblocko:: How could you?!

I found the recipe for Cake batter ice cream on Plain Chicken. What better ice cream to make for the first time, in an ice cream maker that was a birthday present, than cake batter ice cream.  I had bought a pink strawberry cake mix on sale a few months before Blockette's birthday, thinking that she would want a pink cake.  That was before we decided on a rainbow theme, and before we were inviting "M" who would rather not have anything to do with pink.  This seemed like a good way to use up the cake mix.

Incredibly, the ice cream tasted just like an ice cream version of cake batter, without the added bonus of salmonella.  The texture was a bit on the grainy side, which was weird at first, but I got over it by the second bite.  I'm not sure if the texture was due to the fact that I substituted skim milk for whole and half and half for cream.  Or maybe I didn't incorporate the cake mix into the dairy properly.  Or possibly that's just the way it was supposed to be.

As we had a plethora of sprinkles leftover from Blockette's party, this became our favorite way to eat the ice cream.  It was like eating pink funfetti cake.  The sprinkles also masked the slightly grainy texture. 

I'm definitely going to make this version again with other cake mix flavors.  I can't wait to experiment some more with this recipe.  I wonder how the ice cream would taste with muffin or cookie mix added in!  The possibilities are endless. 

If you took a look at the recipe on Plain Chicken you will have noticed that the recipe only called for 2/3 c of cake mix.  So what am I going to do with the rest of the cake mix?  Oh.  I have several evil plans.  Muhahaha!  Keep a look out for more cake mix posts in the not too terribly distant future.

Cake Batter Ice Cream from Plain Chicken
1 cup whole milk, well chilled3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup cake mix

Place freezer bowl of ice cream maker into the freezer. It is better to keep it in there 24/7 that way it is always ready. In a medium bowl, whisk the milk and granulated sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla to taste. Stir in cake mix, making sure there are no lumps. Pour mixture into the freezer bowl and let mix until it has thickened (about 25-30 minutes). Remove ice cream from freezer bowl and place into a separate container. Place freezer bowl and the ice cream into the freezer to further harden.

Ice Cream in a Baggie

What to do on a hot hot day when you are trying to entertain two almost First graders? Make ice cream of course! I saw the directions for ice cream in a bag over at Two Little Hooligans and knew it would be the perfect activity for Blockette and her best friend "M".

This was a lot of fun, but very VERY messy.

A little tip from me to you.  Make sure that your gallon size zip bag is a FREEZER bag, and not a regular run of the mill zip storage bag.  The rough crystals of the Sea salt WILL tear tiny holes in your bag and you will get lots and lots of salty water EVERYWHERE.

Messiness aside, the ice cream was a lot of fun to make.  The kids were amazed when the "milk" turned from a liquid to a squishy solid.  Super magical.

Don't expect the resulting ice cream to be the same consistency of the stuff you can buy in cartons.  The ice cream to be more like soft serve.  And, if your kids like to make "ice cream soup, " be warned that excessive stirring of the ice cream will turn it into a liquid, very quickly.  Blockette and her friend made "soup" and it turned to liquid so quickly that I just gave them straws to finish up their bowls.  

Homemade ice cream in a baggie from two little hooligans
2 T sugar
1 cup half & half (or light cream)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup coarse salt
ice
gallon-sized Ziploc bag
pint-sized Ziploc bag

Mix the sugar, half & half and vanilla extract together. Pour into a pint-sized Ziploc baggie. Make sure it seals tightly. Now take the gallon-sized Ziploc bag and fill it up halfway with ice and pour the salt over the ice. Now place the cream filled bag into the ice filled bag and seal. Make sure it is sealed tightly and start shaking. Shake for about 5 minutes (or 8 minutes if you use heavy cream.) Open the gallon-sized bag and check to see if the ice cream is hard, if not keep shaking. Once the ice cream is finished, quickly run the closed pint-sized baggie under cold water to quickly clean the salt off the baggie.

Banana Split Cake

Sometimes, baking two cakes in August gets to be overwhelming, especially with the excessive heat we've been having this year. Last year, I baked Blockette an enormous 6 layer rainbow cake, and myself a No bake cookie dough pie. This year, I used the oven to make the stargazer pie for my birthday, so it was Blockette's turn to have a no bake dessert.

I remembered seeing a recipe for a Banana Split Ice Cream Cake on Our Best Bites earlier this summer. I thought this would be the perfect dessert for the little munchkin. I told her about it and she was not impressed. Then, I showed her the step by step pictures on the Our Best Bites website, and used my Jedi mind tricks. That did it. She was convinced.

The cake was easy enough to make that Blockette could help me. Although, I think her favorite part was sneaking the strawberry and banana slices. (One for the cake, one for her mouth.)
The cake was a huge hit with everyone. I made only one minor mistake. I was worried the cake would be too hard to cut, so I let it thaw out in the fridge for a few hours. I must have let it thaw for a bit too long because the ice cream was more soupy than solid.

My in-laws really raved about the dessert. My father-in-law, who is notoriously picky, even had a second piece. You know it's good if he wants more!

The in-laws tried to get it out of me how I made the cake. I told them it was a secret. None of them are internet savvy, so they don't ever read this blog. I wanted them to be amazed with my culinary genius.

Then Blockette piped up, "Oh it is easy, you just look at the recipe on the Internet. What's the name of the website you used again?" Way to go and blow my cover kiddo! I suppose I'll let her get away with something like that. It was, after all, her birthday. If you can't get away with being a stinker on your birthday, when can you?


Frozen Banana Split Squares from Our Best Bites
12 3.5 oz. ice cream sandwiches
3-4 medium bananas
1/2-1 c. hot fudge sauce
1/2-1 c. caramel sauce
1 c. chopped maraschino cherries or sliced strawberries (more or less depending on personal taste)
8 oz. frozen whipped topping (like Cool Whip), thawed
1 small can crushed pineapple, undrained
2 Butterfinger bars, crushed (or 1/2 c. chocolate-covered toffee bits, nuts, etc.)

Line the bottom of a 9×13″ baking dish with the ice cream sandwiches, cutting them to fit as necessary. Slice the bananas into pieces about 1/4″ thick and arrange over the sandwiches. Spread the hot fudge and caramel sauces over the bananas. Sprinkle with cherries or strawberries (or both, if desired). Combine the thawed frozen whipped topping with the can of undrained pineapple and spread over everything. Sprinkle with crushed candy bars and freeze for at least 4 hours. When ready to serve, cut into 12 pieces and serve immediately, freezing any leftovers.

Choc Chip Ice Cream Bowls

I made these a while ago, but I always get so excited about eating them that I don't remember to take a pic until I'm done eating. You'd be able to see a bigger contrast between the bowl and the ice cream if someone hadn't eaten all of the chocolate ice cream. Shame on whoever did that!

This is my new favorite way to eat ice cream, esp when it comes to Blockette. She is such a slow eater that most of her ice cream ends up as soup at the bottom of her bowl. With the cookie bowl, all the juices get soaked up by the cookie. It's like dessert for your dessert!

The recipe was easy to put together, but the dough was beastly. I followed the recommended time for chilling the dough, 2 hrs. I don't think a longer chill time would have helped. Once I began to roll the dough out it warmed up very quickly, and stuck to the wax paper. I had to stick the scraps in the freezer before rolling the dough out a 2ND time. I mistakenly put the dough I had already cut out on the inverted muffin pan while I fought with cutting out the remaining dough. Since it took so long to cut all of the dough out, the dough on the muffin pan sort of oozed down which created a few holes in the cups. I had thought I patched them all before baking, but I wound up missing a few.

Next time I will place the cut pieces between wax paper and place them in the freezer until all of the dough has been cut. I will also roll them a bit thicker than suggested. 1/8 of an inch seemed too thin. Then again, I got 12 cookies vs. the 10 the recipe says it makes.

I tested a cookie cup, plain with no ice cream in it and thought, on their own, they were nothing special. I'm used to all butter cookies and I could really taste the shortening. I think an easy fix for this is to use butter flavored shortening. I would not substitute the shortening for butter. I think an all butter cookie bowl would be too chewy. It would get too soggy and fall apart before you finished your ice cream.

Here's the recipe:
Ice Cream Cookie bowls From Gourmet Mom on the Go
1/4 c. shortening
1/4 c. butter, softened
2/3 c. white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. miniature chocolate chips

Beat shortening, butter, and sugar in a large bowl. Add egg and vanilla. Add baking powder, salt, and flour. Stir in chocolate chips. Divide dough in half, shape each half into a flat disk and wrap in plastic. Chill the dough at least 2 hrs in the fridge. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Turn two 12-cup muffin tins bottom side up and cover 10 of the cups with aluminum foil (5 on each pan--leave every other cup empty so there's some space between them). Spray the foil with nonstick spray.

Unwrap 1 disk of dough, place it between 2 sheets of wax paper and roll it out to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut out 4-inch circles of dough and place each one over a cup bottom, smoothing out any cracks. Repeat with the other disk, re-rolling and reusing any scraps. Bake the cookie cups for 10-12 min til light brown. Let the cool for 10 min then remove the foil and cookies from muffin pan. Peel off foil and let cups cool completely. Fill with ice cream or your favorite dessert and enjoy!