Thankful for Butter Pecan Ice Cream

Per request from my family, I made Butter Pecan ice cream for Thanksgiving. I ended up making two different recipes. One was from Paula Dean on the food network, the other I found online was an adaptation from the joy of cooking. Both were pretty easy recipes. I've provided them below. Paulas was by far the easiest but didn't really provide enough real butter pecan flavor. It has pudding mix which is mostly what I taste when I ate it. It is less sweet than the other but tastes more like cake batter ice cream. The other recipe is really, amazingly good. Very rich in flavor and a lot of nuts which I loved. Both are creamy and smooth. Most of my family ate the one I favored, probably because I sold it better. But to be honest if I had just made Paulas recipe they would have loved it anyway. (A) because I made it and (B) it does taste good. One thing I will say I liked about Paulas recipe besides being ridiculously simple is that the pudding mix gave the ice cream a great buttery yellow color. So try both and see what you prefer.

Recipe Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

Butter Pecan Ice Cream on the Food Network

Back by Popular Demand...

So Oreo was a big hit last week except there wasn't enough of it for everyone to try. So I'm making it for a second week. I'll make a double batch this time so I can bring some to my dad. I'll be posting again when I make Butter Pecan for Thanksgiving. Stay tuned.

Week 22: Or-eo-eo Ice Cream

Perhaps the hardest thing about making this ice cream was scraping the cream filing off the cookies. Yes, I said it! I was shocked that the recipe said to do so, but I think it would have made it too sweet. And I get what she was trying to do here, the ice cream is the cream filling. I hated throwing that filling out but really couldn't stand eating it. I'm not really into eating frosting, and thats basically what it is. This ice cream was so easy to make, you could make it for any late night craving. You just make a simple syrup ahead of time (one cup of sugar and one cup of water, simmered till the sugar dissolves). It lasts for a couple months in the fridge. Equal parts whole milk and heavy cream, and you could really add the sugar syrup to taste. The recipe called for 1/4 cup for the 3 cups of heavy cream and milk together, and a dash of vanilla extract. Put this into a maker and then five minutes before its done churning, add the crushed oreo cookies. You could try it with the filling if you want it more sweet but I went for what the recipe said. If you do try it with the whole oreos, I'd like to know how it comes out. I wonder if Nabisco has thought of selling just the cookies. They would be great for desserts or people like me who just love the cookies. I'll have to make my dad a batch of this sometime, he loves oreos! I'm attempting to eat healthier and cook more at home, besides ice cream, but its hard to have the leftover sweets in the house. I still have most of the package of oreos left. I think I'll bring the cookies into work tomorrow so as not to tempt me.

I decided to make an oreo ice cream sandwich when I tasted it. It was delicious. Most people like oreos - they are the cookie of your childhood. They're nostalgic and comforting. This is a perfect combination of chocolate and vanilla. Its so easy you have to try it.

Week 21: Its the Great Pumpkin Gelato, Charlie Brown

I apologize for the huge delay in posting. I'm not having great luck lately. I wrote out a post yesterday and then lost it due to a blogger error on the iPad. Last week we were out of power as a snowstorm hit CT. I had to decide between plugging in the lights or running the ice cream maker. Sadly I chose the lights. Because of this I wasn't able to make my last week of pink ice cream for October. I feel disappointed for not being able to finish it but a donation will still be made to Susan G. Komen.

It was a week of adjustment. You don't realize how much you depend on power until you loose it for a week. I feel for those who are still without power. Because this was such a different week I was totally out of my routine. We stayed with my parents who had a generator and then got their power back mid week. I am so grateful for not having to sleep in a freezing house and see my homemade ice cream melt.

I had great plans for this weeks post but those didn't seem to work out well either. I downloaded an app called Dragon Dictation which types out what you speak into it. I thought this might be a fun and easy way to speak/write these blog posts. I was having some difficulties with the app. You dont have the ability to see what the program is typing as you are saying it, so you dont know what it has picked up until you stop the recording and look at the text. I had to speak very slowly to achieve accuracy and that gets kind of annoying after awhile. This app is great for short sentences or phrases, like a facebook status or tweet. I know they make a computer version which I think works better as it trains the program to learn your voice. I'll have to look into getting that. Anyway enough about that - Lets get to the ice cream!

It seemed perfectly fit to make Pumpkin Gelato as Thanksgiving is a few weeks away. Its also a very comforting and homey flavor that helps when you've had a stressful week. I had made pumpkin ice cream last year for Thanksgiving and didn't have great results. This was before I had this book of course. The texture was never quite right. I thought by adding butter cookies it would taste more like pie but it ended up making it gritty. On another attempt I think I added too much pumpkin and that was too strong a flavor and made it less creamy. But third times a charm I guess. This is creamy without too much spice to be overwhelming. Its not too sweet which I like. If you preferred it sweeter, to be more like pumpkin pie, I would drizzle some maple syrup on top or even better make maple whipped cream. Pecans on the top would add a great crunch. This would be nice to serve alongside pumpkin pie or any pie at Thanksgiving. Its easy simple ingredients will impress your holiday guests and make them very thankful for you and your ice cream.