Thursday evening my parents stopped by the house to drop off some flowers for C and for his family as well as to pick through some more of the limestone rocks that we hauled out from the basement. During the digging of the foundation footings, some huge pieces of limestone cracked off from the existing wall and had to be broken up so we could physically carry the pieces outside. The rocks are actually quite beautiful so instead of just chucking them in the trash, my mom and I are going to use them in our yards for landscaping.
I still hadn't made the ice cream for my grandma's birthday since the week had been pretty hectic and so my dad offered to help me make it that evening and I took him up on that offer. It's always nice to have a loved one in the kitchen when you need a shoulder to lean on. I had originally planned to make a cherry vanilla ice cream, but then, after some thought, decided to do a chocolate malt ice cream with chunks of chocolate. Since the cake was a vanilla lemon raspberry, it seemed a better choice to stand out from the cake. So now, down to business.
The first step in making this ice cream was to prepare the chocolate malt flavour. I whisked up chocolate malt powder into some whole milk and let that sit. I found the chocolate malt powder in the ethnic food aisle at Superstore, not with the chocolate milk mixes. I had bought Ovaltine a couple weeks ago, thinking that it would taste like chocolate malt. Not even close! Let me tell you, the taste was disgusting! What I was hoping for, was the taste of a chocolate malt, like from the Malt Shoppe that used to be at St.Vital Mall before it was redone, and at The Bay downtown. Mmm, Homer Simpson drool...
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| Chocolate malt powder in cream |
With the cream mixture off to the side, I had to make an egg custard base (French style). I adjusted the clip on the candy thermometer so that it could sit on the edge of the pot without touching the bottom of the pan. I whisked together the egg yolks and set them aside. Then, whole cream was put into a pot to simmer until steaming, without reaching a boil. The hot cream needed to get mixed into the eggs, without cooking them. Tempering the eggs is so critical in this recipe since nobody wants bits of scrambled egg in their ice cream. Well, not this lady anyways.
We tempered the eggs without problem (you achieve this by slowly adding 1/3 of the hot cream mixture to the eggs, all while quickly whisking or using a hand mixer, then slowly pouring in another third, while mixing) then carefully added the mixture back into the pot to heat up to 170 C. While the mixture is reaching the proper temperature, it needs to be whisked the entire time so that no one spot is heated too high at once.
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| Egg mixture being heated |
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| Whisking the heating eggs and cream - very important! |
Once I took the custard mixture off the stove and dumped it into a metal bowl, I noticed that there were some chunks at the bottom of the pan. Hmm. I was concerned that some of the eggs did get cooked before tempering. We poured the custard, even the chunks, into a metal bowl and placed it over cold water that was in the sink. My dad looked a little worried, but I reassured him that it would be ok (even though I wasn't entirely sure). I whisked the custard in the bowl in the water, being careful not to have any water spill over the sides, to try and cool it faster. My dad and I strained the custard through a fine metal sieve and had a taste to make sure that everything was fine. It tasted alright but I was still a little worried. Nothing to do now but wait and see and hope for the best. We put the mixture into the fridge to cool overnight. My parents had all of the rocks that they wanted, we shared some tea, exchanged hugs and said goodnight. We'd see them tomorrow.
* * *
Friday. C had to get up early to head out to with the men of the family to prepare the site. I got up early as well and cleaned the house so that it would be tidy for that day. I find a clean and uncluttered house relaxing to be in, and on a tough day, it's even more important to have a peaceful space to come home to. The family ceremony was at 2pm and the later one at 7pm was for everyone to come and pay their respects to the family and hear the sermon. After the ceremony at the site, C and I headed back to his parents place with his brother and we all ate some A&W together, sitting around the kitchen table. Talk was light and we shared some stories, peppered with bouts of thoughtful silence. We were both already tired and C and I decided to go home and change out of our dress clothes and put our feet up for a bit before heading back over. Plus, our little beast needed a pee break too.
I had figured that with the time at home, I would finish up the ice cream, leaving just (just. ha-ha, just a 2 page 4 layer cake recipe that would likely use all of my prep bowls) to make Saturday morning. I find something very therapeutic about throwing myself into a recipe with multiple steps. I think that with the focus and concentration each step takes, that the anxiety or stress loses its momentum within my brain. Cooking is my therapy. In the right circumstances, the right recipe, it's actually a recipe for healing.
With the custard mixture already cold from being in the fridge all night, the next few steps would be fairly straightforward. As per usual, the custard gets poured into the frozen spinning canister of the ice cream maker. My timing so far has been about 20 minutes until the mixture starts to get thicker, with another 5-10 minutes to finish.
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| Chocolate malt ice cream base |
So, with the ice cream maker whirling away, I was free to prepare the rest of what was to be added to the base. Some crunchy bits to add contrast to the smooth creaminess of the base. I had decided on chocolate covered caramel balls and chocolate covered malt balls (both thanks to Superstore's bulk section). Since the ice cream maker instructions suggest to keep any additions to the base to be about the size of a chocolate chip, I had some chopping to do. Oops, one fell of the cutting board...chomp chomp. Oh, that one's not even...chew chew. Ok, and I also shared a couple malt balls with C, so it was fair.
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| Chocolates to add to the ice cream, about 1.5 cups |
Another idea that I had was to swirl something through the ice cream base. I had juggled around a couple of ideas: fudge sauce, caramel sauce, marshmallow fluff... In the end, I decided to go with the marshmallow fluff. I thought that it might be like having a cappuccino with cream.
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| Marshmallow fluff, from Extra Foods |
So, the delicious chunks of chocolate were added to the ice cream maker in the last 5-10 minutes of churning and then it was done. This is the final product. Mmmm! More Homer happy drool sounds proceeded the tasting spoonful. This was by far my favorite ice cream this far. I could have eaten the entire batch, fresh, right there on the couch.
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| Chocolate malt ice cream with chocolate malt and caramel chunks |
Just kidding, I didn't eat the whole batch. I used a spoon to scoop out the soft ice cream from the drum, so that I could spoon marshmallow cream in between layers of the ice cream. I used a plastic ice cream container from my grandma to store the result of this creation.
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| The last spoonful from the drum, before being added to a freezer container |
The final ice cream. Chocolate malt ice cream with swirls of marshmallow fluff and chunks of chocolate covered caramels and malt balls. BEST. ICE CREAM. EVER. David Lebowitz was right. This was the one ice cream of all the ones that he gave away, that he didn't give away. My family is lucky that I am alright at sharing. So, into the freezer it went. After a few tastes of course. I mean, I had to be sure that this was perfect. Om nom nom!
We'll see what everyone else thinks tomorrow.
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| Fresh homemade chocolate malt ice cream |
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