The Perfect Scoop: a review

It's been about a year now since I spent some birthday money on a Cuisinart ice cream maker and pastry chef  David Lebovitz's ice cream (and fixings) cookbook The Perfect Scoop. I have not made such a rewarding frivolous purchase since. Though I am still far from having tried even half the recipes in the book, I thought I'd give a run-down of all the things I've made so far. In fact I'm shocked at how little I've actually made. Looking through the book today for something new to make tomorrow, I decided on the toasted almond and cherry ice cream, to which I'll probably add some form of chocolate. I can't imagine how that could possibly let us down, but I'll report back with the details. :) (I also paused for a second at the avocado ice cream recipe, having just finished a delicious salad with a generous amount of perfectly ripe avocado---best vegetable ever---but I just don't think I could be that adventurous.)


Philadelphia-style vanilla ice cream
This stuff is well worth the use of your most extravagant vanilla beans (actually it just uses one!). I often invert the milk-cream ratio (not at all sure what the all-cream option would yield, but I can't bring myself to do it) to be 2 cups milk to 1 cup cream, and it is still decadent, smooth, and creamy. As he suggests, the fudge ripple (see below) layered in as soon as the ice cream is frozen is magical.


Coffee frozen yogurt
M liked this more than I did. The tanginess of the yogurt with the coffee was not my favorite combination.


Vanilla frozen yogurt
Amazing if you use a good yogurt: Dannon is too one-dimensional and flat to me. I like Stonyfield Farms a lot, and they aren't super expensive like some organic brands can be. Brown Cow is also divine but I don't see it around much unless I go to Whole Foods. After the first couple of tries, I cut the sugar to 3/4 cup (from 1) and liked that better, though it does freeze hard.


Cheesecake ice cream
I made this for a friend with the blueberry sauce on p. 182 swirled in, and it was all I could do not to keep it for myself. I really don't like cheesecake that much, strangely, but this was delicious.


Roasted banana ice cream
The first time I made this, the smell of the bananas roasting with the brown sugar and butter set my expectations really high, and I was a little disappointed with the end result---didn't taste as deep and complex as the aromatic byproduct. But M loved it, so I made it again, using mostly half-and-half for the whole milk, and it became a favorite. It's truly remarkable with the fudge sauce (see below) and whipped cream, or you can add some rum before freezing for another take. I use a shortcut for in the summer when turning on the oven is a terrible idea: just sauté the bananas in the butter and sugar over med-low heat until you get the same effect. Faster and cooler.


Lemon ice cream
This was alright: simple and plain. It froze very hard.


Strawberry frozen yogurt
Good, but I prefer vanilla yogurt with a strawberry swirl. 


Cranberry orange sorbet
A pretty tasty way to use up cranberries leftover from the Thanksgiving sales. Simple and quick. Oddly it ends up tasting less like cranberries and more like strawberries to me.


Chocolate tangerine sorbet
This was one of two recipes in this book that just didn't do it for me. I made it in early December and still have some in the freezer. It tastes okay when the mood strikes. I like chocolate and orange; otherwise I wouldn't have made it, so I'm not sure what the deal is. Just odd flavors.


Chocolate sorbet

What words could adequately describe this unassumingly named phenomenon? "Divine, "mind-blowing," etc. cannot come close. I've only made this once (somehow!?), and I believe I used my stand-by, Trader Joe's 72% dark chocolate (it comes in the big $5 Pound Plus bars and if they ever discontinue it I will die, really just die on the spot). It's so easy, and so worth getting the blender out for that perfect texture. Like many sorbets it freezes pretty hard. And it can be hard to wait those 5-10 minutes for it to thaw a bit on the counter.

Blackberry-lime sorbet

My second favorite sorbet from this book so far. It is really tart, so if you don't love sour flavors, you will want to find a way to decrease the amount of lime juice, or just make the plain blackberry sorbet on the same page. But I love it for chasing spicy Mexican food, and it looks pretty, too. 

Classic hot fudge

This is the real deal, and incomparably better than nasty storebought squeeze bottles. I usually halve the recipe even though it keeps for two glorious weeks in the fridge.

Lean chocolate sauce

I personally wouldn't make this again. I think I even made it before the fudge sauce, so it's not that it just didn't measure up to the impossibly good full-fat version; it just sort of fell flat on its own.

Peppermint patties

These were alright. Sad, because I had high expectations of making something possibly better even than York patties (scarcely conceivable), but I would want to try again with peppermint oil, which I understand is more subtle and interesting than peppermint extract (what I have). They were fun to make and pretty easy, at least. I certainly had no problem polishing them off, let's not get the wrong idea. 

Fudge ripple

Absolutely delicious, and so fast and easy. A must with the vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate ice cream sandwich cookies

These had really terrific chocolate flavor, but I have two problems with the recipe: one, these are enormous cookies on their own, but then to think that they are made for sandwiching with ice cream in between---way too much cookie, and I swear I am not afraid of calories. I would make them half the size next time, and there will be a next time soon. Two---and not really the fault of the recipe at all---it's just so hard to tell when really dark cookies are done. I baked mine until they were crispy, so watch that and err on the side of underbaking if you're after fudgy cookies.

Lemon-poppy seed cookie cups

Hate to end on a sour note, if you will, but this was the other of two recipes that simply did not work for me. It was the first thing I tried out of the book so I don't remember exactly what happened, except that they were completely impossible to handle with my thinnest spatula---they just fell apart. I made sure I didn't leave out some flour or almonds or something, but that wasn't the problem. Not sure what was.

I may just keep adding/updating this one post, so I have something of a permanent review page for what has been my favorite dessert cookbook over the past year.