A life in Ice-Cream Chapter one - Bushmills Butterscotch Pecan · Monday August 10, 2015 by colin newell
When I was around 17 or 18 (and living in a household of very competitive women all with their own culinary streak) I decided to get a French ice cream maker, A Donvier – which was a manual ice cream maker with a cold core very similar to the KitchenAid.
Because it was manual, I could look forward to 25 minutes of cranking the handle while day dreaming about living in the 1980’s… ah, yes… good times.
Anyway – I digress. The recipe.
If there is a top 3 ice cream flavour or style, it may just be butterscotch because it is a subtle variation on vanilla with a twist of something sweet but not as refined as chocolate. Butterscotch: No idea where the name came from, but since it mentions Scotch… I thought, what the heck. Away we go.
Ingredients
6 tablespoons (80g) butter soft / salted or not
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (I used unprocessed Demerera – comments on that later…)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups (500ml) 36% heavy cream
3/4 cup (180ml) Homo milk
6 egg yolks
1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract
1 tablespoon (exactly!) Bushmills Irish Whiskey
1 cup (give or take) Roast candied pecans
Step 1
Melt the butter in a 2 quart saucepan on a medium gas burner (electric is fine)
Add the salt and then add the brown sugar – stir until molten (and caution ahead! Molten
sugar is darn hot and can burn you in ways you cannot imagine — keep children and fingers clear of the sugar!)
Important put aside a few tablespoons of the butter/salt/brown sugar for the roasted pecans – more on that later.
Let the sugar/butter/salt cool a bit if you have over-heated it – check the temperature with an instant read thermometer and make sure the sugar mix is below 200 degrees (F)
Step 2
Add 1 cup of the cream and the milk to the sugar/butter/salt combo
Step 3
In a separate bowl whisk up the 6 egg yolks (egg whites can be saved for another day — like a healthy omelette!)
Step 4
Add the warm sugar/butter/salt/milk mixture to the eggs whisking constantly to avoid a scrambled egg mess in case the sugar/milk mix is too hot.
Step 5
Put this mixture back into the 2 quart saucepan, and keeping an instant read digital thermometer bring the “custard mix” up to a temperature of between 160 and 170 – but no higher!
Step 6
In yet another container (that will sit on an ice bath) put the remaining cream.
Place a fine strainer on top of this container and then pour the “custard mix” through the strainer into the bowl (being ice chilled) that holds the remaining cream. Add the vanilla and scotch and stir to mix.
This is your ice cream “pre-mix” – after it has cool and or stabilized, take it off of the ice bath and put it into the fridge for 2 hours to chill.
Step 7
Roast some nuts – While it is chilling, prepare your roast pecans. You can use almost any nut but preferably something with flavour and texture – walnuts are a good alternate choice – or pistachios.
2 tablespoons butter (around 35g)
1-2 cups of pecans or walnuts
Twist of kosher salt.
Melt the butter in a skillet or sauce pan on medium heat.
Toss in the halved pecans or walnuts.
Add a twist of kosher salt.
Stir to coat the nuts and then spread them across a cookie sheet on top of a layer of parchment.
The parchment paper protects the nuts from burning and sticking.
Put in a 350 degree oven for 9 minutes, turning once at around 5 minutes.
In your sauce pan that you used to coat the nuts: toss in the roasted nuts and the two tablespoons or
so of the sugar mixture you kept from earlier. You can even darken the sugar mixture by heating it in advance and reducing it a bit. Coat the nuts. Let cool. Chop the nuts into small pieces. Put aside.
Step 8
Add your ice cream pre mix to your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer instructions.
And when your churning cycle is around 1 minute remaining, add the chopped nuts.
Empty your ice cream into the storage container of your choice and freeze for 2 to 4 hours.
Note any ice cream that contains alcohol will not set as quickly or as firmly as ice creams without alcohol.
The more hard liquor you add, the more difficult your ice cream will be to set.
Notes I found with 1 tablespoon of Whiskey that it was hardly noticeable in terms of flavour – Rum would have been a better choice. It’s up to you.
I used a very dark raw brown sugar which created a pretty dark ice cream – a tad non traditional – that said, it has a deeper flavour. Personal taste. And up to you as well what you use.
Enjoy!
Comment [2]
A life in Ice-Cream Chapter one - Simply rich chocolate · Saturday August 8, 2015 by colin newell
To date, this is my best ice cream creation ever.
Read the instructions carefully because there are ingredients moving hither and thither!
You will need one sauce pan for heating things up. You will need a digital instant read thermometer (if you really want to play it safe and not cook the eggs!)
You will need a variety of bowls and one large bowl with water and ice in it for chilling a medium sized bowl which will contain the ice cream mix (for chilling)
Do yourself a favour and visualize the steps and the process – I needed to and it helped make this the best chocolate ice cream ever.
Chocolate Sauce
2 cups (500 ml) heavy 36% cream
7 oz semi-sweet Bernaud Callebaut cooking chocolate
1 cup (250ml) whole milk
Custard
3/4 cup (150g) white sugar
pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional)
Warm 1 cup of the cream – bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer for 30s
whisking constantly – remove from the heat and add the coarsely chopped
chocolate stirring until smooth.
Turn in the remaining cup of cream.
Pour the mixture into a large bowl – scraping as much of the goodness out and
set a mesh strainer on top of the large bowl (that also contains the dairy and chocolate mixture…)
Combine (and warm) the whole milk, sugar and salt into the now emptied saucepan. And in a separate medium bowl whisk together the egg yokes.
Slowly pour the warm milk, sugar, salt mixture into the egg yokes whisking constantly – then return this mixture of eggs, milk, sugar and salt into the saucepan.
Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heat proof spatula – monitoring the heat with an instant read digital thermometer – note as you heat this mixture do not under any circumstances exceed 170 degrees or you will cook the eggs.
Scrape the bottom as you stir until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula – again making sure you do not exceed 170 degrees. This is your custard.
Pour this “custard” through the strainer into the chocolate/cream mixture and stir until smooth.
Stir in the vanilla. Add 1/2 instant espresso powder if so inclined.
Stir and cool over an ice bath – that is, your bowl of chocolate custard mixture should be floating on a bigger bowl that is half filled with ice and water.
Chill the mixture thoroughly for 2 – 4 hours in the fridge.
Put the mixture into your ice cream maker following the manufacturers instructions.
I use a KitchenAid commercial mixer with the Ice Cream Cold Core attachment and it works the charm. Ice cream needs to be churned for around 25 minutes or so and there are some manual ice cream makers (like the Donvier but you need strong wrists to churn for 25+ minutes!)
Enjoy!
Are you ready? Chapter One · Thursday April 9, 2015 by colin newell
2:22 AM : The ground starts to move in Victoria. You were sleeping soundly in your bed.
Initially, the noise and vibration did not fully awaken you. Like emerging from an under water dive, you gasp at first as you reorient yourself to the full reality of being awake.
10 seconds has passed by and the side to side movement appears to be intensifying. The thunderous grinding noises of earth and rock pitch against each other.
Everything moves helplessly atop this geologic canvas in a way that is at once fully terrifying and at the same time cartoonish.
Everything that is not tied down is being thrown around as if in a childhood toy box. And now, you are just one of the toys at the mercy of forces both devastating and unseen.
You roll out of bed trying to stand up and as you reach for some clothing in the darkness and you realize that you control nothing – you are entirely at the mercy of this event.
It starts and ends when it is good and ready. Through the window and in the street power poles pendulum back and forth, whipping power lines taut. They fracture, power transformers hum, flash and explode in a shower of sparks.
Before you know it you are pushing your way to the front door of your home, oddly still standing, its corridors littered with a lifetime of personal possessions.
Common sense mixed with a quantity of fear and dread set in.
You remember some of the things you have heard about earthquakes, how most of the injuries occur while fumbling around in the minutes following the shaking. Much to your astonishment, you discover that you have pulled on a pair of shoes because it is a good thing: the floor of your home and the outdoors are layered with broken glass.
The suburb where you live has just been hit with an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 – the shaking lasted 27 seconds which seemed like much more.
As you look around you are struck by the normality of everything on first glance.
Nothing fell over, you think.
As your hearing starts to kick in amidst the darkness and chatter of neighbors emerging from their homes, you take stock of your immediate surroundings.
In the distance you can hear the hiss of broken gas lines, the report of people calling to each other, and even the sound of terror – those alone, staggering into the street wondering what is next.
Your earthquake check list is well established in your head. You instinctively reach for your tool kit that you keep in your car (and an extra set in the garage) and shut off the gas main to the house. Thankfully, there is no water rushing into the street as evidenced by a ruptured water main. Even though you are almost frozen with fear, you keep moving and pushing yourself through the experience.
Your check list scrolls in your head:
a.) Water… got at least a weeks worth in bottles (and lots of beer!)
b.) Candles… check c.) dried food… (enough for a dozen or so neighbors for a week!)
d.) first aid kit… check e.) shelter… house is still standing. It’s summer and I have a 4 person tent. Excellent.
f.) Radio. You grab it on the way out of the house. It’s tuned to a local AM station and has fresh batteries.
To be continued
Colin Newell is a writer, technician and advocate for emergency preparedness – who is, more or less, prepared for anything nature can throw at him.
BC Hydro where for art thou · Sunday January 18, 2015 by colin newell
We had a power outage from 7AM until around 11:30AM today.
And it was patently obvious that outages were widespread — but because of my naturally curious nature, I went over to the BC Hydro website to look at the outage map — and the site stated: If your neighborhood is NOT on the map, please contact us — which I attempted… via mobile phone…
and their system would not recognize my address or phone number… so I went to the website to report the outage online — which it would not let me do UNLESS I had a linked online account with BC Hydro — which I do.
So: In order to report an outage online I need to have a “linked” online account… which I do. But the website reported that I did not lave a linked account even though I was logged in and “linked”
Being an emergency coordinator with the CRD in Victoria, it is very important to me that people be able to report to the primary utilities that something is amiss – and the system needs to work. BC Hydro’s system, however, failed miserably.
For all I knew, there might have been a small handful of customers in my 1km circle out – in fact, there were hundreds of neighbors without power. I wonder how many of them, elderly and not-as-technicial, were fretting about when and if their power would come back on.
On the plus side, this was a good time to check my emergency radio equipment – and everything worked like a charm. I was able to reach out via our amateur (ham) radio community VHF/UHF repeater grid which allows me to talk to pretty much any corner of Vancouver Island with ease. As well, my HF (Shortwave) system allowed me to reach out as far South as California and out to Ohio in the East on very low power.
For those interested in emergency planning and ham radio: There are thousands of active (volunteer) radio operators in B.C. that engage in emergency radio networks on a daily basis, year around and even on Christmas day —
Ostensibly to help keep communities safe and connected.
Now if BC Hydro could figure out their system glitches that would be great – It kind of begs the question: With all these smart meters in place, why do I need to report anything online or via the phone?
