pg. 109 Pineapple Crush

I was standing in Whole Foods wondering what the heck I was going to make for ice cream today, and decided to just flip open the book to help narrow it down. The first recipe I come to? Pineapple Crush. To my right? Extra Sweet Pineapples: 2/ $5. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner. I looked at the ingredients and saw that I only required ONE other ingredient; heavy cream. Easy, enough, right?

Let me just say that I am not a fan of how this recipe was written. It jumps back and forth between "by hand" and "with an ice cream maker" so many times that it gets confusing and the very simple recipe becomes a puzzle. It would have been much easier if they laid out all the instructions for "by hand" on one side and all the "with an ice cream maker" steps on the other. Maybe then I wouldn't have made glorified whipped cream. Again, the steps and ingredients are the same, but I have simplified the steps you take to create this ice cream.

Pineapple Crush Ice Cream

2 extra sweet pineapple
1/4c. sugar
1 1/4c. heavy cream

Cut one pineapple straight through the middle starting from the leafy green top. Use a spoon to scoop out the fruit, working around the core. Once hollowed, cut the core out, drain the juice into fruit, and refrigerate shell. Remove the top and bottom from the second pineapple. Use your knife to cut away the skin, making sure to cut away the eyes as well. Once peeled, cut fruit away from the core. Discard the core and cut the pineapple into small pieces. Puree 11oz of the pineapple (setting the remainder aside) and combine with sugar. Churn until firm, but still too loose to scoop. Add the cream and churn until fully firm. Fold in remaining pineapple and freeze until hard enough to hold a scoop shape.

Unfortunately, I did not follow these instructions. Due to the confusion, I pureed ALL the pineapple. The flavor was quite plain, and quite tart. With pineapple and cream as the only two ingredients, I'm sure you can imagine what it tasted like. The texture was atrocious. It was...flakey. Not like a granita, but just...unpleasant. Overall I am not a fan of this recipe at all.

I already knew that I wanted to accompany it with something sweet...so I mentally selected a Macadamia Lace Cookie recipe that I have had taking up space in my recipe binder for years. The great thing about this project is I'm finally trying out recipes that I discovered ages ago. These cookies are sent from whatever fire-y deity exists. I tried, and tried, and tried some more and could NOT get them to even resemble the gorgeous picture. Of course, I was missing parchment paper, but I didn't think it would be that big of a deal!

Macadamia Lace Cookies

1/4c. butter
1/2c. sugar
1/2c. macadamia nuts- finely chopped
1/4t. salt
1/2t. vanilla extract
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 350*. Line two baking sheets with parchment. In a small pan, melt butter and cook until it begins to brown. Remove from heat, and set aside. In a small bowl, combine remaining ingredients. Slowly add brown butter, and stir until blended. drop batter by teaspoons onto baking sheet- roughly 3" apart. Bake until golden brown (approx 6-8min). Allow 5 min to cool on baking sheet before transferring to cooling rack.

Perhaps you will have more luck with these recipes than I did!