• Eat Your Books

  2007 International Association of Culinary Professionals Award Winner

• Jane on March 19, 2009

  Fabulous recipes that make you want to keep the ice cream maker permanently on the counter (if only there weren't all those calories).

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Coffee meringues with coconut ice cream

  • Jane on February 27, 2019

    I wanted a coconut ice cream to use in passion fruit macaron sandwiches. My first batch (David Lebovitz's toasted coconut ice cream) was delicious but too yellow (5 egg yolks will do that). I really wanted a very white ice cream for the contrast. This one seemed to fit the bill being all coconut milk and cream with no eggs. Unfortunately the flavor and texture was not a patch on my other batch. The ice cream was very hard and the flavor rather bland. There was very little sugar (2 Tb) which probably contributed. Not one I will repeat.

• Milk chocolate wafer and chai ice cream dots

  • ashallen on August 11, 2019

    This is a really delicious ice cream with very rich, complex layers of flavor. This note's only on the chai ice cream part of the recipe vs. the milk chocolate part. I made a few changes - my black tea was very strong/dark (Irish Breakfast) so I increased the sugar from 2/3 to 3/4 c to balance the flavors; I had extra egg yolks lying around so I increased the total number from 3 to 5; and I increased the salt a bit.

• Ranger cookie and peanut butter ice cream sandwiches

  • ashallen on October 07, 2021

    I made just the peanut butter ice cream part of this recipe. Very nice ice cream with a smooth texture and a moderate, almost aromatic peanut flavor (I think the latter might come from steeping the peanuts in the milk?). Freezes hard, so it benefits from a bit if time to soften on the counter before serving. My favorite peanut butter ice cream, however, is still the peanut butter ice cream base for Jeni Britton Bauer's The Buckeye State ice cream which is a thicker, more intensely peanut buttery style of ice cream than this recipe.

  • ashallen on December 10, 2021

    This time I made the cookies but not the ice cream. The cookies are awesome and definitely worth making on their own. They bake up thin, flat, chewy-moist on the inside, and lightly crisp on the outside. I love the coconut-peanut-chocolate flavor combination. Slight taste of baking soda but it definitely wasn't off-putting for me. I used a chopped up bittersweet chocolate-almond bar instead of chocolate chips, chopped the peanuts finely, and used table salt instead of kosher, all of which I'd do again. Baked on insulated cookie sheets instead of single-layer sheets with parchment paper as called for in the recipe - worked well. I made an ice cream sandwich with these using some really good homemade vanilla ice cream and it was *awesome* (though it's harder to taste all the great flavors in the cookies when they're paired with cold ice cream!).

• Shortcake and rum raisin ice cream sandwiches

  • ashallen on October 06, 2019

    I only made the rum raisin ice cream from this recipe, so no comments on the shortcake part of this dessert. Great rum raisin ice cream with a complex set of flavors and smooth, creamy texture! The raisins I chose were a bit on the chewy side, even after soaking in the rum - next time I'll choose raisins with softer skins. Next time I'll add 1-3 additional egg yolks for more richness and smoothness in the base. The butterfat from the cream mysteriously clumped up a bit as the custard cooled, but it largely reintegrated during churning.

• Shortcake and pistachio ice cream sandwiches

  • ashallen on October 05, 2019

    I made only the pistachio ice cream from this recipe, so no comments on the shortcake part of this dessert. Ice cream had very good flavor for pistachio ice cream which I find tends to have a milder flavor than some other nut ice creams like toasted almond or hazelnut. Texture was heavier than we prefer, however, for eating ice cream straight-up - it reminded me a bit of eating nut butter. On the plus side, the ice cream did a great job keeping its smooth, rich texture in the freezer over the course of a couple of weeks and did not become icy.

• Walnut cookie and orange-cardamom ice cream sandwiches

  • ashallen on September 03, 2021

    I made only the orange cardamom ice cream from this recipe. Nice but not fabulous as a stand-alone ice cream. It would work better as an accompaniment to something which, to be fair, is exactly how the author presents it! Orange flavor is subtle, coming only from orange zest, so there's no tang/acidity that you'd get from using orange juice. Cardamom flavor is nice and not overpowering. Cooked custard was relatively thin and final ice cream had a bit of iciness and froze hard. I'm guessing this is in part due to the recipe having a higher ratio of milk/cream to egg yolks than my usual favorite recipes.

• Cold Italian hot chocolate with orange-cardamom ice cream

  • ashallen on September 03, 2021

    I made only the orange cardamom ice cream from this recipe. Nice but not fabulous as a stand-alone ice cream. It would work better as an accompaniment to something which, to be fair, is exactly how the author presents it! Orange flavor is subtle, coming only from orange zest, so there's no tang/acidity that you'd get from using orange juice. Cardamom flavor is nice and not overpowering. Cooked custard was relatively thin and final ice cream had a bit of iciness and froze hard. I'm guessing this is in part due to the recipe having a higher ratio of milk/cream to egg yolks than my usual favorite recipes.

• Purple and yellow cows

  • ashallen on May 31, 2020

    This recipe is for a cassis-berry sherbet that's scooped into a glass of homemade pineapple soda - I just made the cassis-berry sherbet (though the pineapple-berry combination sounds great). Fruit flavor comes through well - my blackberries weren't very flavorful, so I'm impressed I can taste them at all in the sherbet! The creme de cassis definitely boosts the flavor. I'll look forward to trying this again once the wild blackberries ripen around here. Easily scoop-able even after full freezing. Texture's a little icy but not bad, especially for a sherbet. Aromatically fruity and refreshing overall. Yielded a scant 1.5 quarts sherbet.

• Champagne grape and pecan galettes with orange-cardamom ice cream

  • ashallen on September 03, 2021

    I made only the orange cardamom ice cream from this recipe. Nice but not fabulous as a stand-alone ice cream. It would work better as an accompaniment to something which, to be fair, is exactly how the author presents it! Orange flavor is subtle, coming only from orange zest, so there's no tang/acidity that you'd get from using orange juice. Cardamom flavor is nice and not overpowering. Cooked custard was relatively thin and final ice cream had a bit of iciness and froze hard. I'm guessing this is in part due to the recipe having a higher ratio of milk/cream to egg yolks than my usual favorite recipes.

• Oat financiers with peach ice cream

  • ashallen on August 11, 2020

    I made just the oat financiers part of this recipe which we ate with black raspberry ice cream we already had on hand. Peach ice cream would have been great, though - the black raspberry clobbered the oat flavor! By themselves, these are nice little cakes with a pleasant oat flavor. I was concerned they'd bake up dense without any leavening (the egg whites that go into them aren't beaten), but they came out light and tender with a nice buttery chewiness along the pan edges. I used quick rolled oats vs. the thicker old-fashioned rolled oats and that seemed to work fine. I lightly toasted the oats in the oven along with the almonds for extra flavor. A nice, easy way to use up egg whites that were irretrievably contaminated with yolk.

• Plum-cornmeal cake with orange-cardamom ice cream

  • ashallen on September 03, 2021

    I made only the orange cardamom ice cream from this recipe. Nice but not fabulous as a stand-alone ice cream. It would work better as an accompaniment to something which, to be fair, is exactly how the author presents it! Orange flavor is subtle, coming only from orange zest, so there's no tang/acidity that you'd get from using orange juice. Cardamom flavor is nice and not overpowering. Cooked custard was relatively thin and final ice cream had a bit of iciness and froze hard. I'm guessing this is in part due to the recipe having a higher ratio of milk/cream to egg yolks than my usual favorite recipes.