Kiwi Green Tea Sherbet.

A while back I had to scrap a kiwi custard. I had a couple of kiwis on hand the other day, so I decided to go again with another kiwi thing. I really enjoyed the clementine sherbet I made in december, so why not work on some kiwi sherbet?

A simple syrup was made with the addition of the zest from one lime. I brewed about a cup and a half of strong green tea. After the syrup and tea had cooled in the fridgerator for a few hours I skinned five kiwis and pureed them along with the juice of that lime. The tea and about one quarter cup of syrup were added to the kiwi mixture. Enough heavy cream was added to make two pints. The mixture was frozen.

A Dimension Of Perfectly Ordinary Vanilla.

They say the classics never go out of style, so today I made a classic vanilla ice cream. I started by tossing two split and halved vanilla beans into about a cup and a half of milk, heated it to just before a boil and let the vanilla beans steep in the milk for 20 minutes. The only reason I halved the beans was because they were too long to fit in my pot, otherwise simply splitting them lengthwise would be enough.


As the end of the twenty minutes approached I separated out the yolks from the eggs that had been sitting out, warming up to room temperature. The yolks were placed in a mixing bowl along with some sugar and whipped together.
Today, I have decided to make a change in my basic recipe. I have been thinking about it, and from now on I am going to add one more egg yolk to my custard. From now on I will use seven yolks. This is a purely "superstitious" addition. I hope the addition to "lucky" seven yolks will improve the power of my ice creams. The perfection of the egg will now be increased with the godly symmetry of seven.


After the twenty minutes had elapsed I removed the vanilla beans from the milk. I added some of the warm milk to the egg mixture a little bit at a time, and then poured that mixture back into the warm milk and slowly cooked it for a few more minutes until my custard was cooked.
While the custard was cooking I scraped the seeds from the beans and put them back into the custard. When it was finished cooking I strained the custard and allowed it to cool. Once the custard had cooled I added some heavy cream and threw the mixture into my machine.




"...a fallacy that is becoming more and more widespread, and that is that unfamiliar things are more interesting than familiar things. The argument being that familiarity with an object exhausts the object, we know all there is to know about it, and it holds nothing further for us. Nothing could be more mistaken. The less we know about an object, the more primitive the concepts by means of which we try to grasp it... As the sounds become more usual, so the listener is invited to penetrate more and more into them. In this way something unfamiliar is brought home."
-Cornelius Cardew

White Chocolate Peppermint Sandwiches.

These white chocolate peppermint ice cream on traditional american weed brownie sandwiches were conceptualized a while back, and what better occasion than the new year/decade to actualize them and revel in the excess they represent.
The first step was to bake the brownies, but before the brownies could be baked the weed oil had to be cooked. We turned the herb into a powder buy running it through a food processor (less volume, more surface area.), making sure not to run the machine so long as to heat the herb. Next I took the half cup of oil that was called for on the back of the box and put the oil along with the weed into a large frying pan. The grass was allowed to cook in the oil on a very low flame for about ten minutes. Once the oil had cooled it was added to the box of brownie mix along with two eggs and some water. The brownies were baked according to the box, in a 9x9 pan. We thought this would allow for eight nice sized sandwiches.


Next we got to work on the white chocolate peppermint custard. As usual a custard was prepared using eggs, milk, and sugar. I reduced the amount of added sugar considerably to compensate for the sugar in the white chocolate pieces. While the custard was being prepared the chocolate was melted in a bowl on top of a pot of boiling water. The hot custard was then strained into the chocolate and thoroughly blended together. It was looking a little too viscous, so I mixed about half a cup of heavy cream into the mixture and stashed it in the fridgerator to cool.

Once everything had cooled I added a very small amount of vanilla and a rather large amount of peppermint extract to the mixture along with more cream. This mixture was then put into the ice cream machine and I set to work splitting the brownie in half while the machine did its thing. This was a little more complicated than I was expecting it to be, and would have been simpler if I had allowed myself enough time to let the brownies completely cool before slicing them, but I gave myself a deadline and I set to work anyway. Scoring the edge of the brownie was simple enough. I used a chopstick to measure a halfway point and scored the perimeter of the brownies. However once I had begun slicing all the way though I realised that the brownies were still a little moist in the center. But I got the brownie separated and reassembled the spotty bits as best I could.
After I had my two slices of brownie I crushed a pair of candy canes that were found laying around from christmas. I took the bottom slice of the brownie and put it back into the 9x9 pan it was cooked in. The crushed candy canes were sprinkled all over the bottom slice.



As the ice cream approached completion a good amount of white chocolate chips were added. A few moments later the chips were distributed and the custard frozen. I removed the completed ice cream onto the candy cane sprinkled bottom slice of weed brownie. I was able keep a pint of the ice cream off the sandwich, so I would estimate a pint to a pint and a half of ice cream were used in the sandwiches. After I had dealt with the custard the top slice of brownie was added and the sandwich was put into the freezer to firm up.


The next day I took the sandwich out of the freezer and, in an effort to remove the sandwiches from the pan, wrapped them in a kitchen towel I had soaked in hot water. Then, using a knife, I seperated the edge of the sandwich from the pan and fliped it out on to a rack and then over again onto a cutting board. The 9x9 brownie was cut in half one way and in quarters the other. Eight brownies were made and seven were put back into the freezer. I ate one and wraped the others up.
Hours later my limbs were very heavy and my mind quite relaxed.