Categories
Recipes

olive oil ice cream | angel food cake

Asking me to pick a favorite food is like asking a mother to pick her favorite child. It’s hard. But press me long enough and I’ll probably say ice cream. Or pasta. Or green beans. Or sushi. It really depends on the day.

Indecision aside, ice cream is up there at the top of my list. It aways sounds good even if I’m stuffed. I like even the worst of ice creams. Wendy’s frosty or McDonalds vanilla cone, I’ll choke one down—if choke is synonymous to joyfully consume with a grin of happiness across one’s face. I love ice cream.

This ice cream was inspired by the orange olive oil cake that I made a few weeks ago. The ice cream follows the same general recipe as Bi-Rite’s ice creams: heavy on the cream, light on the other flavorings. It’s really wonderful. And as my custard was chilling, I mused… orange and olive oil would go really well with pistachios, and who doesn’t like ice cream topped with with crunchy bits? Thus pistachio brittle brittle was born. It was a good hunch. This is a really sublime combination. I’m only sad I can’t fit more than one batch of ice cream into my ice cream maker.

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Whenever I make ice cream, I end up with a jar of egg whites in my fridge. They’ll languish there, maybe a tablespoon is added to a cocktail, and then a few weeks later I’ll toss the rest. It’s wasteful and a shame. And so, I decided to see if I could make a baby angel food cake out of the remaining egg whites. Turns out, you absolutely can! It’s about half the height of your traditional angel food cake, but no less delicious.

Orange Olive Oil Ice Cream with Pistachio Brittle
5 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup 1% or 2% milk
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 orange, zested
1/4 olive oil

In a medium bowl, whisk the yolks just to break them up and then whisk in half the sugar (6 tablespoons). Set aside. Put a plastic container in an ice water bath.

In a saucepan, heat the cream, milk, rest of the sugar and salt over medium heat. When the mixture is just about to simmer, whisk 1/2 cup into the egg yolk mixture. Then whisk in another 1/2 cup. Then add the egg mixture in with the remaining milk in the saucepan and stir.

Cook the mixture carefully over medium heat, stirring constantly until it is thickened. If it can coat the back of a spatula and hold a clear path when you run your finger across it, it’s ready. Pour through a mesh strainer into a plastic container. Zest the orange over the custard mixture and mix in. Stir occasionally until the mixture cools. Once cool, put in the refrigerator to chill for 2 hours or overnight.

Whisk the olive oil into the chilled base. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Enjoy right away, or put back into the plastic container and freeze.

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For the pistachio brittle
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup light corn syrup or tapioca syrup
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 cup shelled pistachios
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons unsalted butter

A note on candy making:  The first time I tried to make this brittle I used an organic sugar made from evaporated cane juice. It’s basically the more hippie/less processed variety you can buy at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. Don’t do this! Your brittle will reach a point where it suddenly transforms from syrup to rock candy. There’s no way to coax it into caramel and it is a nightmare to clean. To make this recipe, you’ll need to get the super processed C&H or Domino Pure Cane Sugar that your grandma uses.

Line a baking sheet with parchment and then brush it with a light layer of oil. Combine sugar, water, corn syrup and salt in a heavy saucepan. Put the pan over medium heat and cook without stirring until the mixture reaches 280° F, about 20 – 25 minutes. Pay close attention once it reaches 250° F because it will get to 280 very quickly and you don’t want it to burn.

Stir in the pistachios and stir frequently as the nuts toast and the syrup browns. When the syrup is a mahogany brown, remove from the heat and carefully stir in the baking soda. Once that is blended, stir in the butter.

Pour onto the prepared baking sheet and carefully spread into a thin and even layer using a heatproof spatula. You’ll want to work quickly to spread it before it hardens, but be careful because the mixture will be very hot!

Let cool to room temperature for at least an hour and then cut into pieces to sprinkle on top of the ice cream. Store in a tupperware on the counter.

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Baby Vanilla Angel Food Cake
2/3 cup sugar
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup cake flour, sifted
3 tablespoons warm water
5 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste or vanilla extract (I bought vanilla paste online for a Thomas Keller recipe about a year ago. It’s basically just several scraped vanilla beans in a bit of alcohol with some zanthan gum to give it a gel texture. It’s wonderfully strong flavored and pretty great stuff)
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

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Preheat the oven to 350° F. In a food processor, spin the sugar for about 2 minutes until it is super fine. Sift half of the sugar with the cake flour and salt and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixture or a large mixing bowl, add the egg whites, water, vanilla paste and cream of tartar. Whisk on medium high until stiff peaks form. This will take about 10 minutes. Once the mixture is looking meringuey, carefully fold in the flour mixture.

Spoon batter into an ungreased tube pan. Cook 25 minutes, until a tester inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool upside down on a cooling rack for an hour before unmolding from the pan.

-Emily

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Categories
Recipes

malted vanilla ice cream with kit kat

This ice cream was a challenge. Not because making ice cream from scratch is a difficult thing—I’ve made it many times before with success. But because sometimes I loose my head at the grocery store, throw reason out the window and buy something as a ‘substitute’ that should never, never be used as a substitute.

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It was a Tuesday night and I was making ice cream for our supper club later in the week. We were responsible for dessert and I’d brainstormed a glorious candy-filled concoction. I figured I’d make the custard quickly before Jordan got home from work and we sat down to dinner. I was already feeling a bit on edge before I began this culinary project, but like I’ve mentioned before, there is nothing like cooking to help me find my center. Except when a crucial error in judgment sends the whole thing into a sticky, custardy, teary tailspin. You can probably guess which ensued that fateful Tuesday.

Dear readers, Ovaltine, though technically a malted milk beverage, is NOT malted milk powder. Don’t let any discussion forum or milk wiki on the internet convince you otherwise. And don’t try and talk yourself into it after you’ve already been to four grocery stores and not one of them sold true malted milk powder. Let me just say it again: Ovaltine is not a viable substitute for malted milk, in any cooking context.

Thankfully, Jordan got home just as I was warming the milk and cream to add to my eggy-Ovaltine blend of poor decision making and pulled the emergency break on this disaster. This is how it went down.

J: Why are those eggs so brown? I thought malted milk was white? How much did you use?

E: I … I … I went to four grocery stores. I couldn’t find malted milk powder ANYWHERE. I even went up to the market all way up the hill. I was there forever trying to find it.  So looked it up online to see if I could substitute something. Some internet people say you can substitute Ovaltine. It’s probably fine ……………(panic)……………… It’s probably horrible. I’m such an idiot. I just ruined five eggs. Five beautiful eggs. They were from our CSA, you know. And now we’re out of eggs. And the city of San Francisco still won’t offer up any malted milk powder. (Collapse in heap on kitchen floor).

J: Well, before you add the milk, did you even taste it?

E: No. (Shame face).

J: Sutter Fine Foods has malted milk powder. Let me show you.

E: (Grumble, sniff, grab purse).

And so we walked down to the corner store on our block, Jordan led me to the baking section, grabbed a container of Carnation Malted Milk Powder from the top shelf and beamed. I may have muttered something about how this was the most damn annoying ice cream that I’ll ever make, paid the cashier, and scampered up the stairs to correct my mistakes of earlier in the evening.

With actual Carnation malted milk powder instead of Ovaltine, my custard was a beautiful pale yellow, and the final ice cream was delicious. There is nothing like the combination of malted milk, vanilla and kit kat to make a person forget the trials that led them to that delicious end. And, if you heed my advice and don’t get lured to the Ovaline dark side, you too can enjoy a perfect ice cream without the drama.

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Malted Vanilla Ice Cream with Kit Kat, adapted from Bi-Rite Market’s Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup malted milk powder (we used Carnation)
1 3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup 1% or 2% milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Kit Kat bars, chopped

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Add the malted milk powder and whisk together.

In a saucepan over medium heat, warm the cream, milk, sugar and salt together. Bring just to a simmer. Whisk about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture into the egg yolks, pouring the hot milk slowly into the eggs to temper them. Add another 1/2 cup of milk into the eggs. Then pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan with the rest of the milk.

Put a mesh strainer over a medium sized bowl or tupperware. Fill a large bowl with ice and water.

Over medium heat, stir the milk and egg mixture until it begins to thicken. When the ice cream base could coat a spoon, pour it through a mesh strainer into a bowl or tupperware. Cool the base in the ice water bath, stirring occasionally. Refrigerate the base overnight.

The next day, add the vanilla to the ice cream base. Pour it into your ice cream maker and freeze according to your maker’s instructions. Meanwhile, chop up the kit kats.

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When the custard is just about frozen, add the kit kat pieces. Serve right away or put into a tupperware and freeze for another few hours to harden completely.

-Emily

Categories
Restaurant Reviews San Francisco

taquería cancun

I love mexican food. Like my mother, I could probably eat it everyday. Limited access to great mexican food is just one of the reasons living outside of California borders on torture for me. The Mission District in San Francisco offers a myriad of taquería options, but not all super burritos are created equal. Jordan and I have done the legwork and our favorite taquería is Taquería Cancun (2288 Mission Street, between 18th and 19th).

Last Saturday we enjoyed awesome burritos in the company of awesome friends. Our recommendation: go for the super burrito or super taco “al pastor” ($6, $3). What does al pastor entail you may wonder? How can this meat be so delicious? Well, al pastor means that slices of pork are marinated in chilis and vinegar and then are cooked shawarma-style with a pineapple on top. I have to say that love the image of a pile of meat roasting on a spit with a pineapple on top almost as much as I love a super burrito al pastor!

Our friend Jeff took our recommendation and got the super burrito al pastor, another friend went with the chicken burrito and another went vegetarian. None were disappointed.

After we finished our burritos we took a stroll through the neighborhood.

Afterwards we grabbed soft-serve ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery. I happen to think soft serve pairs magnificently with burritos. The perfect end to a perfect day in the Mission.

-Emily