Monday Randomness

I have entered a cupcake contest over at The Middlest Sister. Check it out and vote. I'd appreciate it if you give me a sympathy vote because I 'd love to win the sweet prize package Libbie has put together, but if you chose to vote for one of the other cupcakes, I'll totally understand. They're way cuter than mine! Oh, sigh, me and my decorating skills. At least you can be assured that mine were delicious.

And now on to today's post!



One of the things I like to do when I'm bored is go check my blog stats. It's fascinating to me to see little dots on the map representing people around the world who somehow find their way to my blog. My own mother doesn't read my blog; what would someone in Thailand, Spain, Lebanon, or Denmark find interesting about my blog? Well, apparently not much in Denmark. They only stayed 0 seconds. Oh my, fame is fleeting.

Another interesting part of the stats I check out is the downloads. I can track which pictures are the most downloaded. I feel embarrassed about my lame photography skills, so it's a little ego boost to see if people like pictures enough to jack them. What was disturbing to me was that for a while this picture was leading the hit parade.



Really? What are you people doing with a picture like this? Making it your laptop background? Printing a poster for above your bed? Putting a framed copy on your desk at work as your pretend family? I find this a little troubling.

A current favorite download right now is this diptich my husband put together for me when I wrote the post comparing shoes and cakes.


He listened and paid attention when I was researching, comparing Jimmie Choos and Christian Louboutains. Thus it was that when he was walking down the hallway at work and spotted a picture of Christian Louboutains as someone's desktop wallpaper, he knew right away what they were.

He said to the woman, "Ah, Christian Louboutains!" Her jaw dropped open and she said, "Are you .... a fan of his shoes?" (Unasked question - "Do you have any in your closet and/or are you gay?"). He assured her that it was his wife that liked the shoes and she was relieved. Finding out a male co-worker has a thing for designer high heels - awkward!

What isn't awkward is cookies. (Yes, I'll have to check the archives, but that might possibly be my worst segue ever. Deal with it.)



Cookies are always appropriate - an ice breaker at social gatherings, a great way to meet the new neighbors, an appreciated gift that says, "I'm thinking of you!" Even if you have the decorating skills of a donkey (did you vote for my cupcakes yet?), you can whip up a batch of cookies that will brighten the day and bring smiles to the faces of the lucky recipients. And if a few of the cookies don't make it out of the house, I won't tell. You deserve a happy day, too!

Happy Day Cookies
(aka Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup dried cherries, chopped
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Adjust oven racks to the upper and lower thirds of the oven.

2- In a large bowl beat butter and sugars together until creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat well.

3- In a medium bowl combine the flours, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture and mix well.

4- Stir in the oats, cherries, and chocolate chips. Mix well.

5- Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 9-11 minutes, rotating sheets top to bottom halfway through. The cookies should be browning around the edges and the tops set, not gooey-looking.

6- Cool the cookies for 2 minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Cute As A Cherry

Cherries are the hands-down winners in the cutest fruit contest. Strawberries are nice, kiwis have a special appeal, and oranges are colorful, but I'm drawn like a magnet to anything with cherries printed on it. Aprons, kitchen towels, dresses, handbags - anything with cherries on it is just about irresistible. Something about the bright red color, the cheerful off-round shape, and the jaunty stem just makes them darling.

Another cute thing that's hard to resist is tiny food. Petit fours, itty bitty cookies, tiny tarts, brownie bites, and miniature cupcakes.

Now if you combine cherries with mini cupcakes what do you get? Serious cuteness. And deliciousness. When I saw this recipe in Martha Stewart's Cupcake cookbook, I had to make them for the cuteness factor alone. Bonus that they are moist, almondy, and have the surprise of a whole cherry in the middle.



These are perfect for a tea party, a picnic, or just a mid-afternoon indulgence. Small, sweet, and oh so cute - how can you resist? Just be sure to warn guests that there's a pit in the middle so they don't break a tooth. Of course, you could pit the cherries, but I think it's more fun to leave them in. There's a certain amount of cute in having to spit the pit from a cupcake, too.


Tiny Cherry and Almond Tea Cakes
- adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

makes about 24-30 mini cupcakes

1-1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp (1-1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 oz almond meal OR 1 cup unblanched almonds
1 cup sugar
1 tsp coarse salt
5 large egg whites
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp kirsch (cherry brandy)
30 sweet (Bing) cherries, stems intact

1- Preheat oven to 400 deg. F. Brush mini muffin tins with butter and dust with flour, tapping out the excess.

2- In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Cook, swirling the pan occasionally, until the butter is lightly browned and fragrant. Remove from the heat and skim off the foam from the top. Set aside.

3- Place the almond meal in a large bowl. (If using whole almonds, process them in a food processor till finely ground, then transfer them to the bowl.) Whisk in the flour, sugar, and salt to combine. Add egg whites and whisk until smooth. Stir in the kirsch. Pour in the browned butter, leaving any burned sediment behind, and whisk to combine. Let the batter rest for 20 minutes.

4- Fill each prepared cup with 1 Tbsp batter. Push a cherry into the batter of each cup, stem standing up. Dip the back of a small spoon into the remaining batter and smooth the batter over the top of each cherry to cover it.

5- Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted near the cherries comes out clean. Cool the tins on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Run a small knife around the edges to loosen and turn out the cakes onto the rack to cool completely.

Cakes can be stored overnight at room temperature in airtight containers.

Clean Up Time

I love order, it just doesn't happen in my house. I really try. I organize my pantry, grouping all the canned tomato products together, the canned beans together, and the canned fruits together. Then I go to the grocery store and my unloading helpers put things on the shelves wherever they fit. I appreciate their help, but this totally destroys my organization.

Then the next time I need a particular canned good, I have to hunt through the entire pantry to find that one item that I know, I KNOW, I have because I bought it last week.

But the upside to that is that in the searching and hunting, I often unearth things I'd forgotten were on the shelves. Like a can of cherry pie filling. I don't normally use cherry pie filling from a can, but I had just run across a recipe in a cookbook that calls for just that. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to clear the shelf and give my husband something to take in to a work meeting.

The result? An easy recipe and a pan that came back 100% clean. So, think about it, do you have a can of cherry pie filling lurking in your pantry? Here's your chance to use it up without having to make a pie crust!

Chocolate Splattered Cherry Bars
- adapted from The Taste of Home Baking Book

2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1-1/4 cups butter, softened
1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling
1 tsp almond extract
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F with a rack in the center of the oven.

2- In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, oats, sugars, and butter until crumbly. Set aside 1-1/2 cups of the mixture in a small bowl. Press the remaining mixture into an ungreased 9 x 13-inch pan. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the edges begin to brown.

3- In a bowl combine the pie filling and the almond extract. Spread the filling carefully over the crust. Sprinkle with the reserved crumb mixture.

4- Bake 20 to 25 minutes longer or until edges and topping are lightly browned. Remove to a wire rack.

5- In a small bowl, microwave the chocolate on high power for 45 seconds. Stir until the chocolate is smooth. Using a spoon, drizzle and splatter* the chocolate over the warm bars. Cool the bars completely before slicing.



*Homeschool moment: I used my famous Jackson Pollock technique on these. My son watched me doing it and gasped, "Just like on Sister Wendy!" (We've been watching The Story of Painting together and had just watched Jackson Pollock painting.)

DIY Dessert

My husband and I rarely go out for dinner. Weird as it may seem, I don't find eating out relaxing. My everyday wear is jeans and Danskos, so to dress up and put on a skirt and heels isn't relaxing. I worry about the hygiene in the kitchen. Did our server look like the kind of person to spit in our food? And I fret about the cost. Why should I pay outrageous prices for something that I can jolly well cook myself for a fraction of the cost? And tip on top of that??

For my husband's sanity and the sake of our marriage, I've reached a compromise. I'll happily go out if I can wear my jeans and comfy shoes, if the caliber of the restaurant suggests cleanliness is not a special order, and if I can order something that's too time-consuming or tricky for me to make at home.

Recently hubs and I had just such a dinner out. It was lovely and we both enjoyed our food. But when we looked at the dessert menu, it just wasn't right. There was nothing deeply chocolatey. While we scanned the menu, we bounced ideas back and forth about the perfect dessert for that moment. We arrived at fudgey brownies with cherries and a dark chocolate cherry ganache. That wasn't on the menu, so when we got home I made them. Mmmmm, perfect ending for the best dinner out in a long time!

Cherry Brownies with Chocolate Cherry Ganache

1/2 cup (125 g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
3 oz (90 g) unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup (220 g) sugar
Pinch of salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup (90 g) cake flour, sifted
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup drained, chopped canned sour cherries (juice reserved)
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1- Preheat the oven to 350 deg. F. (180 C). Line an 8-inch square baking dish with aluminum foil, leaving at least 2 inches hanging over the edge of the pan, and lightly grease the foil.

2- In a saucepan over low heat, combine the butter and chopped unsweetened chocolate. Heat, stirring often,until melted, about 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar and salt. Add the eggs and vanilla and stir until well blended. Sprinkle the sifted flour over the mixture and stir until just blended. Gently stir in the chips and chopped cherries.

3- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake the brownies until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out almost completely clean, about 30 to 35 minutes. Crumbs may cling to the toothpick. Do not overbake, or you'll lose that marvelous fudgey texture!

4- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

5- While the brownies are cooling, make the ganache. Place the reserved juice from the sour cherries plus enough juice to equal 1/2 cup into a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, till the juice is reduced and is the consistency of syrup.

6- Add the cream to the saucepan and warm just till small bubbles appear around the edges. Pour the cherry-cream mixture over the chopped bittersweet chocolate. Let it sit for a few minutes, then stir until all the chocolate is dissolved.

7- Pour the ganache over the brownies and let them sit for an hour for the ganache to set up. This can be speeded up by popping the brownies into the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

8- When the ganache has set, pull the brownies out of the pan, using the foil as handles. Set them on a cutting board and peel back the foil. Cut into 16 or 25 squares (depending on how big you like your brownies).

Winter Baking Land

We've had a really weird winter, weatherwise, thus far. Last year we saw more snow than we had in decades and this year, nothing. Not a flake. We're coasting along in the balmy mid-50's (F). It makes me feel just a little guilty when I read about the poor people on the other side of the country who are getting beaten up by storm after storm, dumping tons of snow, to the point that people can't leave their houses. Yikes!

I wish I could send along some of our warmer weather. But since that's not really a feasible plan, I'll turn my oven on in solidarity with my fellow frozen citizens. Warm up the kitchen and bring on the comfort.

There is something immeasurably comforting about warm, messy food. It's not meant to be pretty (and as you can see from my pictures, it's not!), but it is certainly delicious. And just a bit will fend off the horrors of the day and give you hope that everything's going to be OK. Even if you can't dig down deep enough to get to the snow shovel.

Chocolate Cherry Bread Pudding
- adapted from Baking Kids Love

1/2 loaf bread (white, challah, or Italian), about 8.5 oz
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1-3/4 cups milk
1-3/4 cups heavy whipping cream
6 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup dried, sour cherries
Whipped cream, for topping

1- Preheat oven to 325 deg. F with a rack in the center of the oven. Spray a 9-inch round cake pan or pie pan with cooking spray.

2- Cut the crusts off the bread (you can discard or save to feed the birds or make into bread crumbs). Cut the bread into 1/2-inch cubes. Spread the bread cubes on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

3- Measure 4 cups of the bread cubes. The remainder can be saved in a plastic bag in the cupboard or freezer for future use.

4- In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, sugar and salt until completely blended. Whisk in the milk, cream, and vanilla and blend well. Add the toasted bread cubes to the bowl and stir them into the custard. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes, then remove the bowl from the refrigerator and stir the mixture to make sure the bread soaks up the custard evenly. Return to the refrigerator for another 10 to 20 minutes, or until the bread has soaked up most of the custard and looks very soft. (If you turned off the oven after toasting the bread, turn it back on now.)

5- Stir the chopped chocolate and cherries into the mixture. Scrape the mixture into the baking dish and press it into an even layer. Bake for 50 to 70 minutes, or until slightly puffed, golden brown, and set in the center.

6- Transfer to the cooling rack and let cool for 15 to 20 minutes before serving. Serve with whipped cream. Leftovers (as if!) should be stored covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. REheat in a 325 deg. F oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until warmed through.

Hot Chocolate

Man, it's hot here. Not just hot, but all fans full bore, walking around the house in underwear, eating popsicles for dinner hot. We're wilting. The only happy thing around here are my tomato plants. The little green blops have started to finally ripen. Of course, the Early Girl starts that I bought this spring have all turned out to be mini roma tomatos, but at least they'll be red.

The other thing that the heat brings on is zucchini. This is the time that gardeners have to be vigilant, constantly checking for ripe zucchinis lurking under the leaves. Left too long in this kind of weather they will swell and bloat up to Herculean proportions. Then you only have three options. 1) Use them as baseball bats. 2) Hollow them out and use them as one-man canoes. 3) Swaddle them up like babies and leave them in a Moses basket on the doorstep of a kind stranger.



If you are the recipient of said swaddled zucchini (or unswaddled for that matter), I can think of no more delicious way to use it up than to make this bread. Chocolate Cherry Zucchini Bread. Even the finickiest of non-vegetable eaters (such as my husband) won't object to zucchini when it's folded into a luscious chocolate bread studded with ripe cherries and chocolate chips. It's deliciously moist and when warm (like today) it takes on a fabulously melty chocolate texture, requiring frequent licking of fingertips as you devour your piece. Um, two pieces. Excuse me, could you look the other way? Er, three pieces.

The recipe is from the lovely blog Feeding My Enthusiasms. I was fortunate enough to get to meet up with the blog author this past week and she's wonderful. Go get the recipe and then take a stroll through her blog to enjoy her beautiful recipes and her lovely writing.



I think I'll go cut another slice of the chocolate zucchini bread and then stick my feet in a bucket of ice water.

Edible Hedgehogs

My daughter had a friend whose main attraction was that she had a pet hedgehog. It was adorable. She'd bring it over to play and they'd stroke it and watch it curl up into a ball or waddle its way across the lawn in search of lunch.

I was delighted with this pet. It didn't shed. It ate pests. And it was cute as a button. Who could ask for more in a pet?

The starting point for these cookies was the flavors. I wanted a cookie with almond, cherry, and chocolate sharing the flavor stage. And it had to be in a nice, moist cookie. After a bit of experimenting this is what I came up with. The tang of the dried sour cherries balances out the sweet hits of chocolate and the toasted almonds give wonderful crunch to every bite of delightfully moist cookie. Who could ask for more in a cookie?



I named these Hedgehog Cookies before I baked them, thinking that the almond slivers reminded me of a hedgehog's prickles. After they were mixed and baked, the almond slivers, for the most part, just lay hidden inside the cookie. But I'm keeping the name because they also are small and delightful in unexpected ways.



Hedgehog Cookies

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup quick oats
12 oz. (2 cups) mini chocolate chips
1 cup toasted, slivered almonds
3/4 cup dried tart cherries, finely chopped

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. with racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2- In a small bowl combine the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

3- In the large bowl of a mixer combine the butter and sugars. Beat till creamy. Add the corn syrup, vanilla extract, and egg. Beat till well incorporated.

4- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Beat just till the flour is incorporated.

5- Add the mini chips and the cherries and stir till combined. Then stir in the nuts carefully by hand. You want to keep large chunks of nuts.

6- Drop Tbsp of dough onto the prepared sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake in the preheated oven 9 - 11 minutes, until the tops of the cookies are set and are just lightly browned. Don’t overbake.

7- Allow the cookies to sit on the cookie sheets for 2 to 5 minutes (the cookies continue baking on the sheets), then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Store in an airtight container. Makes about 5-6 dozen (didn’t really count accurately as my family kept eating them as soon as they came out of the oven).

Cherries To The Rescue

Sometimes I think I should change the name of this blog from Cookie Baker Lynn to Rescue Baker Lynn. It seems like three quarters of my posts are about how I manage to pull a flaming disaster out of the fire, never mind that I'm the one that set it on fire in the first place.

Yet another instance of this took place this week. When cranberries first hit the stores I snagged a bag, knowing that I'd find a perfect use for them. I put them in my fridge and was rewarded when my husband brought home the Cookies edition of Fine Cooking. There is a gorgeous looking recipe for cranberry bars in there. Yesssss!

But, as so often happens, life got in the way of my best laid baking plans. First Thanksgiving took over my kitchen, then the fridge was so stuffed with leftovers that I wasn't allowed to bake anything new, then the cookie exchange...... So, when a snow flurry brought on a baking day, I was more than ready to make the cranberry bars. But, the cranberries had gotten tired of waiting for me. As I picked through them I realized that only about half of them were useable, the rest were sad, withered, blackened and mushy. Rats! And the crust was already in the oven. What to do, what to do?

What flavor goes well with cranberries? One of my standards for Thanksgiving is a cran-cherry salad, so I grabbed my bag of dried cherries and threw in a couple of handfuls with the cranberries that were still useable. Did it work? Oh, yeah. The cherry flavored mellowed the tartness of the cranberries and gave it an interesting complexity and the streusel topping and shortbread crust rounded out the combination to make them irresistible. Really. After the third (or was it fourth?) bar, my husband begged me to take them away. "I can't stop eating them!" he moaned.

If you have a bag of cranberries lurking in the fridge, haul it out now and make these. You'll be so glad you did. It's better they go to waist than to waste.


Crancherry Streusel Bars
- adapted from Cookies by Fine Cooking

Crust & Streusel:
10-1/2 oz. (1 cup plus 5 Tbsp) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to just warm
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 tsp kosher salt
2 large egg yolks*
14-1/2 oz. (3 cups plus 3 Tbsp) unbleached all-purpose flour

Crancherry topping:
1/2 bag (6 oz) fresh or frozen cranberries, picked over, rinsed, and drained
about 1-1/4 cups dried cherries
1 cup granulated sugar

1- Line a straight-sided metal 9x13-inch baking pan with foil, leaving an overhanging edge.

2- In a medium bowl, stir the butter, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and the salt. Whisk in the egg yolks. Stir in the flour to make a stiff dough. Transfer about 2 cups of the dough to the prepared pan, and press the mixture evenly into the bottom. Prick the dough all over with a fork. Refrigerate the pan for 30 minutes (or freeze for 5 to 7 minutes) until the dough is firm.

3- Position a rack in the center of the oven and another near the top. Heat the oven to 325 deg. F.

4- Bake the dough on the center rack until the crust begins to set but does not brown at all on the edges (the center will not be firm yet), about 20 minutes.

5- While the crust bakes prepare the filling and topping. With your fingers, combine the remaining 1/4 cup sugar with the reserved dough until crumbly. The mixture should hold together when pressed, but readily break into smaller pieces.

6- In a medium saucepan, bring the cranberries, cherries, sugar and 1/4 cup water to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium high and continue to boil until the liquid is reduced to a thick syrup, about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let the mixture cool for 5 to 10 minutes - the syrup will continue to thicken as the mixture cools.

7 - Spread the crancherry mixture evenly over the hot crust. Scatter the streusel over the cranberries. Increase the oven temperature to 350 deg. F and bake the bars near the top of the oven until the streusel is golden and set, about 25-30 minutes.

8- Set the pan on a cooling rack. Cool at least 1 hour, until the crust is completely firm. (If it's chilly outside, you can set the bars outside to speed cooling.)

9- When the bottom of the pan is cool, carefully lift the bars from the pan using the foil sides and transfer them to a cutting board. Slide a spatula between the foil and the bars to separate them and slide the bars off the foil. Cut the bars into 1-3/4-inch squares. They will keep at room temperature for one week. (As if they'd last that long!)

* This leaves you with two egg whites, perfect for making divinity, if your humidity is below 60%.

Above and Beyond

The high school I attended had 7 formal dances a year. Since there were so many dances they weren't as elaborate as many schools that only have "Prom." Girls would borrow each other's dresses so they wouldn't have to buy 7 new dresses each year, and big bonus points were earned for creativity and fun on the part of the boy.

It was bad form to just call a girl up and ask her to the dance. Elaborate plans were made just for the asking phase of the dance. My sister once had a boy leave a gigantic envelope on the doorstep - it was probably 3 feet by 4 feet. It was addressed to her and had a large replica of a stamp affixed. Inside was a huge piece of paper, corners rounded, lined, and big holes punched so it looked like notebook paper. On it was handwritten the invitation to the dance. So cute!

A very creative young man led me on a Mission Impossible treasure hunt ending in a phone booth with the self-destructing tape and the recorded invitation to the dance. I put my reply on a small piece of paper ("yes"), rolled it into a film canister, baked a cake, cut out the center and put the film cannister into it, assembled and frosted the cake, and left it on his doorstep in a cake box.

Girl's Day Dance was a girl's choice dance and it was traditional that the day before the dance, the boy would take the girl who asked him to the dance out to lunch. Not just grabbing a hamburger at McDonalds, but something creative. Maybe this was a picnic spread in the school cafeteria , the hallway, or out on the lawn.

My sophomore year I asked an older guy who I didn't know to the dance. He was a friend of a friend and I thought he was cute. I didn't know much about him, but my friend said he was really nice and urged me to ask him. The day before the dance he kidnapped me for lunch and drove me up to the mountains in his Jeep. I had no idea where we were going. (You can keep reading. This isn't going to be a creepy story.) We parked, hiked, and arrived at a lovely site, high, high up, overlooking the valley, with a little stream going by, and a picnic laid out for us by his friends who'd come up earlier to lay out the tablecloth, the wine glasses and milk, and the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was impressed!


The thought, planning, and effort that go into an endeavor pay off in the end. So it is with this ice cream. It was such a long process to make that I've put off blogging about it. I'm so lazy I didn't want to have to type in all the steps. But every time we ate it I would think, "This is sooooo gooood! I've got to let people know about this!" So here it is. Try not to be angry that I'm out of season here. You'll have a hard time finding fresh cherries. You can use canned, or just print it out and put it in your file to make next summer. You'll thank me then!

Almond, Cherry, Chocolate Ice Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop
by David Lebovitz

1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
Pinch of salt
2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream
2 cups (270 g) whole almonds, toasted and coarsely chopped*
5 large egg yolks
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 cup (200 g) well-drained Sour Cherris in Syrup or Candied Cherries, coarsely chopped**
Fudge Ripple

Warm the milk, sugar, salt and 1 cup (250 ml) of the cream in a medium saucepan. Finely chop 1 cup (135 g) of the almonds and add them to the warm milk. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

Strain the almond-infused milk into a separate medium saucepan. Press with a spatula against the strainer to extract as much flavor from the almonds as possible. You can also pick up handfuls of the almonds and squeeze out all the liquid possible. Discard the almonds.

Rewarm the almond-infused milk Pour the remaining 1 cup (250 ml) cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan. (A rubber glove under the egg yolk bowl will keep it from skittering across the counter as you whisk.)

Stir the mixture constanly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, sraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Stir in the almond extract and stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's insturctions. During the last few minutes of churning, add the remaining 1 cup chopped almonds. When your remove the ice cream from the machine, fold in the chopped cherries.

*To toast almonds spread nuts in an even layer on an ungreased baking sheet. Place the sheet in a preheated 350 deg. F oven for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring once or twice while baking. Snap an almond in half: if they're done it should be lightly golden brown throughout. Let amonds cool completely befor using.

**Candied Cherries (makes 2 cups)

1 lb (450 g) cherries, fresh or frozen
1-1/2 cups (375 ml) water
1 cup (200 g) sugar
1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 drop almond extract

Remove the stems and pit the cherries. Heat the cherries, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a large nonreactive saucepan or skillet until the liquid starts to boil.

Turn down the heat to a low boil and cook the cherries for 25 minutes, stirring frequently during the last 10 minutes of cooking to make sure they are cooking evenly and not sticking.

Once the syrup is reduced to the consistency of maple syrup, remove the pan from the heat, add the almond extract, and let the cherries cool in their syrup. They can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

To use, drain the cherries in a strainer for about 1 hour. Save the syrup to pour over pancakes - heavenly!


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The lovely and gracious Jaden of Steamy Kitchen awarded me the Thinking Blogger award. Thank you, Jaden!


I'd like to pass this award on to several other bloggers who inspire me, inform me, and make me think:

Kitchen Wench
My Kitchen In Half Cups
Food and Photo
Mulligan Stew Me
Technicolor Kitchen