My personal favorites, Part II

The Fairfax Scoop 

One of my FAVORITE spots for ice cream is a teeeeny organic ice cream shop in Fairfax, CA called the Fairfax Scoop.  Not only do they create their own unique flavors from scratch daily, they also make their own waffle cones and bowls.  The Scoop was my inspiration to begin making my own ice cream, and it's their deliciously simple, yet unique, flavors that keep customers lining up.

Another reason I adore the Scoop is the integrity of their business. In addition to using only the best organic dairy and produce, they also help support local businesses by sourcing much of the ingredients they use from Bay Area dairies and farms.  My favorite flavor..? Tomales Bay Strawberry.  Now that's what I call delicious sustainability.

TCBY 

Ok, so most of you from Southern California may not know what TCBY is.  In fact, I'm not sure they even exist down here but if I had to compare it to something you might recognize, Golden Spoon would have to be the closest thing.  Fine, so you don't get an actual golden spoon at TCBY but you can get a parfait, which is essentially 3 layers of topping, and three layers of frozen yogurt, all intertwined into one delicious dessert.  
The best part of a parfait is that each layer can be something different, allowing you to get pretty creative.  Despite the many options, my perfect parfait always consisted of alternating layers of white chocolate mousse and Reese's peanut butter cups.  You say boring, I say delicious.


Cherry On Top 

Ok, so I'll admit that I fell in love with this place from the moment I walked in the door.  Around 10 flavors of frozen yogurt and an endless array of toppings ranging from chocolate chips and butterscotch sauce to granola and fresh fruit, all at your disposal. Did I mention it's self-serve? Similar to the sundae bar at Sizzler, (anyone??.....anyone??) but on a much larger scale, this fine establishment allows you to customize your own ice cream sundae. 
The downside of Cherry On Top is that you need to possess a fair amount of self control, which I admittedly have not one ounce of.  Otherwise, you end up with  a ridiculously obscene amount of ice cream, and a weary gaze from the teenager weighing your beastly treat to determine the price.  Yes ma'am, I WILL be finishing it all, thank you very much.


San Anselmo Gelato 

I will tell you that I've never actually known the name of this gelato place, or that it had a name at all, only that is is AMAZING and the owner gives you a free triangle shaped wafer cookie when you get some of his delicious gelato.  Also, he's for sure 100% Italian which makes his ice cream, ahem, gelato even more enjoyable.  This place is located in my home town and it was where I had my first exposure to gelato.  It's also the first time I found out gelato was different than ice cream, very different.  
They have the most amazingly decadent flavors, my favorite being Chocolate Caramello Crunch.  Anyone remember that candy bar? Well this gelato place somehow has a secret reserve of it on premise to make their gelato and it's a good thing they do. It rivals Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie as my all time favorite flavor, and that's saying something.  


What are your favorites? Why not give your hometown spots a shout-out? I'm always looking to add to my list!! 

My personal favorites, Part I

I think that a blog entry dedicated to the the great ice cream makers of the world is in order.  I'd like to pay homage to those doing great things, big and small, and maybe give a shout-out to my all time favorite ice cream treats.  


Ben & Jerry's:  
In my book, they take the cake when it comes to creative mix-ins.  Not only can they take credit for being the first to do cookie dough ice cream, but they offer over 50 creative and unique flavors, and those are just the ones that are still in circulation.  If you check out their website, you can see all the flavors that RIP in the flavor graveyard.  Besides the fact they make amazingly delicious ice cream, they've been striving to run a green company well before it was the cool thing to do.  Also, they make my favorite ice cream, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, and that makes them #1 in my book.  

Häagen-Dazs: 

So maybe they don't get points for creativity, but I would argue that they have perfected the art of vanilla.  For those of you who haven't made vanilla ice cream, it's a lot more difficult than you may think.  A good vanilla ice cream is a delicate balancing act, often times swayed one way or another in the wrong direction. Too sweet, too rich, too icy, too eggy?  I'm not sure eggy is a word but you get where I'm going with that.  At any rate, Haagen-Dazs has it down and I don't know many people who would disagree with me.  


It's It: 

As a Bay Area native, I grew up enjoying these delicious San Francisco treats. After some historical research, I discovered that these babies were created in 1928 for exclusive sale at Playland-at-the-Beach, a long demolished theme park of sorts on the Great Highway.  


After Playland closed, the treats disappeared briefly, only to resurface years later on a much larger scale.  
Currently, you can enjoy five different It's It brand treats, although my favorite still remains the classic vanilla It's It.  A scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two soft oatmeal cookies blanketed in a thin coat of dark chocolate.  Each flavor in harmony with the other.  Sure you could go crazy and enjoy an It's It with mint, chocolate or coffee ice cream but I think classic vanilla is the way to go.


Nestle Drumstick:

Honestly, what's not to love about a Drumstick? It's essentially a portable sundae but instead of some boring bowl, you get a delicious crunchy sugar cone that's been lined with chocolate.  And WHO can forget about that extra chocolate that pools in the bottom of the cone, forming the most delicious and satisfying ending in ice cream cone history. Ahhh drumsticks...now-a-days there are about a million varieties but true to form, I'm a sucker for the original vanilla.  However, if you showed up with the caramel centered ones, I wouldn't turn you away.  

Popsicles, the next big thing?

So maybe I'm a little late to jump on the ice cream bandwagon, but perhaps my imagination can lead me in a similar, yet profoundly innovative direction.  When discussing the possibilities of opening an ice cream shop in small town Sebastopol, I was immediately informed that another local business already had a stronghold on the hearts, and stomaches, of the quaint Sonoma County community.  Why wouldn't they?  It's 2010 and organic, locally produced ice cream is far from a new development.  Not that I'm one to back down from a challenge, but why compete with a business after my own heart.

I stand by the belief that there are many elements necessary to achieving success in business, and to creating a product that will exceed your customers demands, the most important being novelty.  If you're making something that someone else has already created, it better be damn good.  The upside of the ice cream business is that "good" is very subjective.  By that I mean your goat milk gelato might be preferred over a traditional gelato by a certain group of people, each side arguing that their preference is "better".  But who is right? The answer is neither, and both.

But I digress, this blog is supposed to be about popsicles.  I have yet to tackle the issues regarding popsicle making but I intend to and I promise to report on my findings as soon as possible.  On a side note, I was recently re-enraged over the discontinuation of my beloved jello pudding pops .  Yes the disappearance did take place over 15 years ago, but it doesn't make it hurt any less.  With that in mind, I am formally announcing my intention to re-create the memorable and highly regarded jello pudding pop, icy shell and all.  Heck, maybe I'll even try out some other flavors while I'm at it.

Stay tuned...

Eggs or no eggs, that is the question.

Before I started this journey, I had little to no knowledge of how to make ice cream.  I had an idea that it was something along the lines of this: milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and perhaps some other miscellaneous flavor components.  Most, if not all, of the recipes I read prior to my first batch of homemade goodness included these components, except one.  This one particular recipe came from the instructional booklet included with  my gelato machine, and referenced its traditional Sicilian roots for the omission of eggs.

In this recipe, the egg yolks were substituted with cornstarch in order to preserve the vibrant and rich flavor of the chocolate.  The idea behind cornstarch, if I've read correctly, is to enhance the texture of the ice cream and add viscosity without the additional flavor eggs bring to the party.  Being the inquisitive soul that I am, I pondered which textural enhancer worked more efficiently, eggs or cornstarch, and if flavor interference was the only reason to use one over the other. With some money burning a hole in my pocket and a few hours to kill, I was determined to find out.

STEP ONE: find a recipe to test.  STEP TWO: decide vanilla is the obvious choice.  STEP THREE: make two batches of ice cream, one with egg yolks, the other with cornstarch.  Done, done and done.  And the results....drum roll please....not all that exciting.  Annoyingly enough, they both tasted pretty similar.  The one with eggs had a slightly richer custard-like flavor, the one with cornstarch tasted sweeter and more like true vanilla.  So which one was better?

I was determined, and still am, to find the best of both worlds.  That means finding a happy medium between the two.  A hybrid if you will, part egg and part cornstarch.  After about a million test batches of vanilla, the perfect balance was achieved.  (Or so I thought...but that's for another blog...)  The two original recipes I tested against each other required either 6 egg yolks, or 2 Tbsp of cornstarch.  The modified recipe for my "perfect" vanilla uses 2 egg yolks and 1 tbsp of cornstarch, a conglomerate of eggy richness and bright vanilla flavor working together in perfect harmony.  Here is what I came up with:

2 c. heavy cream
1 c. milk
1/2 c. sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
1 pinch salt


So to answer my question, eggs or no eggs, I guess the only appropriate answer is eggs.  Or no eggs.  Or maybe something in-between.  Wait, can you repeat the question?

Decisions, decisions.

Alright, so I've decided to start making ice cream.  First step, buy a machine.  But which one to get?? So many choices? Too many decisions...

Let's get to the point. I am a Libra, and for those of you who don't know what that means, let me elaborate.  I CAN'T MAKE DECISIONS. EVER. PERIOD. So many pro's and con's...always swaying back and forth between options. 

With certain decisions, there is a clear winner.  What recipe will I use to make Banana Bread? Uh, the one with the 550 5-star reviews, thank you very much. Easy.  Not so easy, selecting a product with middle of the road reviews, especially when it's competition also has the same mediocre reviews. Uhg! I hate making decisions.

After MUCH deliberation, this is the one I settled on:

http://www.amazon.com/DeLonghi-GM6000-Gelato-Self-Refrigerating-Compressor/dp/B002RT91FM

I bought this one specifically for a few simple reasons, the first and foremost being that I wanted a machine that would incorporate little overrun (air) into my ice cream. Secondly, I wanted a machine with a built in air compressor so I didn't have to freeze any stupid bowls.  Third, it was on sale at Williams Sonoma.  

Ice cream, I mean, Gelato machine...check. Round one goes to me.

Where am I, and how did I get in here?

First and foremost, I must begin this journey with a brief explanation of who I am and why I'm writing this thing in the first place.  If you can only know one thing about me, know that I am at my core, a lover of all things sweet.  

I secretly believe that I have two stomachs, one quite small for savory foods, and one MUCH larger reserved strictly for dessert.  It is for that reason that I contemplate why it took me 27 years to purchase an ice cream machine in the first place.  


Second, I love to create things. Edible things mostly.  Sweet and edible things especially. So here I am, ice cream machine in hand, well, on counter, ready to begin my creative endeavors.  I write this to share my successes, my failures, and everything in between.  

It took me 27 years to get here and I've got a lot of catching up to do.