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. 

baking anticipation

While I'm at it, here's my list of desserts/baked goods that I will be making as soon as cool weather sets in:
1. Makowiec, per this Fresh Loaf recipe. It calls for the whipping of egg whites (my most dreaded baking-related task) but it seems it's just to lighten the filling, so I won't sweat it if (yet again) I fail to achieve stiff peaks. My husband has fond memories of his Hungarian grandmother making this bread for holidays. I've had bakery versions and am anxious to see if I can make a decent one at home.

2. Chocolate-dipped almond biscotti (recipe below). Besides the extensive oven time, they feel like such a fall/winter snack to me. These were one of the first successful things I ever baked. The recipe comes from a much-referenced copy of Gourmet's Casual Entertaining, Random House: New York, 2001. (Unlike many Gourmet recipes it is not on Epicurious so far as I can tell.)
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. grated orange zest
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 whole egg + 1 egg white
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. whole almonds, toasted then coarsely chopped
6 oz. bitter- or semi-sweet chocolate, for dipping

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees and adjust a rack to the middle level. In a medium bowl combine the flour, sugar, orange zest, salt, and baking soda. In a large bowl, beat together the egg, egg white, and vanilla to combine. Add the flour mixture and beat just til combined. Stir in chopped almonds.
2. Use floured hands to form the dough into a 12x2" log and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake until pale golden, about 45 mins. (Do not turn off oven at this point.) Cool the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then transfer the log, peeling off the parchment carefully if it sticks, to a cutting board. Use a sharp serrated knife to cut diagonally into 1/2" thick slices. Place slices back on the baking sheet and return to the oven. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn slices and bake another 10 minutes, until crisp. Transfer biscotti to a rack to cool.
3. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler, then dip the top (curved) edge of each cookie in the melted chocolate. Transfer them to a sheet of wax paper set on a large plate or baking sheet, then chill in fridge til chocolate is set, about 5 mins.
Yield: 18 cookies. If you don't dip them, you can keep them at room temperature for about a week. Once dipped, they can be held in the fridge for up to a day.

3. Gingerbread. I haven't yet found a perfectly moist, perfectly spiced cake, but I'm sure it's out there. This chocolate-chip variation is certainly a winner in its own right. I've been making it for several years. David Lebovitz's fresh ginger cake is also supposed to be fantastic.

4. Pumpkin "bread" (it's cake, let's be honest). Also a great Williams-Sonoma recipe I found years ago. I like making it into muffins, or just using a regular loaf pan (not their $30 specialty one) and watching the oven time accordingly. Pairing it with rich vanilla bean ice cream (this year I can make my own!) makes for an insanely good fall dessert.

5. Butter Rum Cake (from Lisa Yockelson's Baking by Flavor). I only make the cake and half the amount of glaze, never the rum custard sauce (as tempting as that sounds), and it's still a beautiful dessert with the most amazing texture. It's not greasy like pound cakes can be.

6. Dark chocolate & cherry bread pudding. This is a Pam Anderson recipe I actually have scribbled on a napkin stuffed into my recipe binder, though I'm sure it's online somewhere. I think I was waiting at the doctor's office and reading one of those women's magazines when I found this recipe and, knowing Pam's reputation, thought I should find some way to copy it. That was a while ago and I still haven't made it, but it is a priority this year.

7. Maple-Walnut Pear Cake. Another untried recipe, from David Lebovitz (Ready for Dessert). The flavors sound pretty amazing, so no explanation needed. It's also a smaller cake (one 9" pan), which is how I adjust most recipes for us, so that's a plus.

8. Sea salt caramels, recipe here: lacking true fleur de sel I used 3/4 tsp. coarse ground sea salt, and it worked. You just don't make caramels in the summer. After November they feel right.

9. Big apple pancake. We had this for Sunday "breakfast" (what we do for lunch after church) all the time last winter. It requires the same amount of oven time as a pan of bacon, so you put both in the oven and you have an easy, delicious breakfast 15 minutes later. It doesn't always puff up uniformly, so don't count on it being perfectly picturesque.

10. Biscuits. Cream, buttermilk, herbed, drop--it doesn't matter. To me nothing says a hearty winter meal like a fresh pan of biscuits, and I miss them.

Pate à choux

Pate à choux is a type of pastry that always sounded, and looked, so complicated that I never entertained the idea of trying to make it at home. I can't remember the last time I ate any, either, because we don't exactly frequent restaurants with profiteroles and Paris-Brest on the menu. (We go to Chipotle on special occasions, and take out chicken pho that is actually really good from a place nearby when M is sick.) But Michael Ruhlman (via his book Ratio) convinced me to try pate à choux when he wrote, essentially twice in this one little chapter, that he has no idea why it's not usually part of the home cook's repertoire, since it is easy, fast, economical, and extremely versatile. And delicate and French and pastry at the same time. Wow. Say no more.

So pate à choux consists of nothing more than butter, water, salt, sugar (if it's going to be used in a dessert), flour, and eggs. The preparation is unique, but nothing resembling advanced pastry skills is needed: you bring the water, butter, salt, and sugar to a simmer in a medium saucepan, then stir in the flour quickly, at which point it becomes a soft, homemade-playdough-like dough that you cook for another minute or two to let it release some of the water. The dough must be cooled so that the eggs do not cook too quickly (i.e. scramble), so after a few minutes' rest you whip in whole eggs, one at a time, which eventually assimilate themselves into the dough, which starts looking like a batter again.

Then all you do is pipe out logs for eclairs, or just spoon golf-sized balls, onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. They're baked at 425 for 10 minutes, then the temp is reduced to 350 and they continue cooking another 10-20 minutes, during which they start rising and puffing out quite a bit. I chose to make little balls for cream puffs and they were pretty much done after 20 minutes.

For filling I adapted a recipe for pastry cream from CI's Restaurant Favorites (which I am incapable of simply opening to find a particular recipe---I always get drawn in and lose myself for a few minutes in glorious possibilties such as Asian five-spice chocolate cake, or pear and green tea sorbet, or cannoli gelato...). It called for half-and-half instead of cream (which I did not buy this week), and a fairly modest amount of egg yolks. It was very quick and tastes not too rich or cloying to me, which has been the case with other pastry cream recipes. I opened the cream puffs halfway around the middle and scooped in some cream, then drizzled a lazy chocolate sauce (half-and-half heated, poured over 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate and vanilla, whisked til smooth).

Even if pate à choux were much more complicated, I would be willing to make it again. These were delicate, positively cloud-like, and though they possibly needed a tad more sugar, I thought they were perfect with a filling and a fairly sweet sauce on top.  Now that I know how unbelievably easy and versatile this pastry is, I'm afraid I might be making it more than is good for us in days to come...

(photos next time, my camera batteries went out on me and I was more interested in eating dessert than going to look for replacement batteries at the moment...)

Ham & egg pastries; mini palmiers

Friday night I made ham and egg puff pastry squares from CI's Restaurant Favorites at Home. I had previously made this for brunch, with a cream sauce I opted out of this time, and had an extra sheet of puff pastry from that I needed to use up. Obviously it's very hard to go wrong with 1) puff pastry 2) Black Forest ham 3) Gouda (which I subbed for the cheddar called for) and 4) soft scrambled eggs.

For the pastries, you unfold a sheet of pastry and cut out a 9" circle. This leaves you with a significant amount of scraps left over. I decided this was unacceptable and Googled around for an easy way to use them. Behold, mini palmiers: you just stack the scraps of dough on top of each other (do not squeeze together or knead them), then roll them out into a rough rectangle. Sprinkle the rectangle generously with cinnamon sugar. Starting from one short end, roll tightly halfway up. Roll the same way from the other end til they meet. Using a sharp knife, slice the dough lengthwise into 1/4 to 1/2" palmiers. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 400 for about 15 minutes or until lightly golden.

Saturday for dinner I was planning another tapas sort of thing, but I was lethargic and we were out much of the day and I couldn't get excited about labor-intensive stuffed mushrooms and salt cod in tomato garlic confit, which didn't really go together anyway. I had Mike find me an easy recipe online (which means I'm really in an anti-cooking stupor), a Martha Stewart one in fact, and I ended up using the last of my precious salt cod on pan-fried fish cakes. They certainly weren't bad, but I felt a little silly.

Today we managed to sleep for no less than three hours in the middle of the afternoon (M hasn't been sleeping well, but I have, so I have no idea what's wrong with me), hence the time stamp on this post. Somehow shortly after we emerged from hibernation we were hungry, so I heated up Julia Child's cream of leek and potato soup which I made Friday, and made some small Gruyere and sauteed mushroom burgers. Yes, burgers and French soup, a classic combination. I will say the Gruyere-mushroom combination works très bien, but I think everybody except me already knew that.