Citrus Trio

Concept from Ice Cream Galore by Caroline Barty

Citrus Trio
Lemon curd ice cream, grapefruit sorbet, and clementine granita

same ice creams, different plating

Out of the three, the lemon curd was my least favorite. I had to make homemade curd, which was essentially a cold hollandaise sauce, therefore the ice cream tasted like a frozen one. The grapefruit sorbet was super smooth and had the tartness of a fresh grapefruit. However, combined with the super sweetness of the clementine granita, the create a wonderful harmony.

The photos didn't turn out especially well...both were taken at night with poor lighting, and the first picture was spur of the moment without any sort of garnish. I would like to make this a successful dish, but the lemon curd ice cream has got to go. I could potentially replace it with a lemon gelato or perhaps a lime semifreddo.

pg. 233 Pomegranate and Orange Blossom Water Creams

Oh internet, how I have missed you! My scientific musings have been on the fritz ever since my internet decided it no longer wanted to be a part of my life. But here we are, back with more beautiful iced treats, and botched experiments from beyond the freezer.

My favorite part of this project has matching my experiments with seasonal ingredients. For example, it's pomegranate season, so why not go for it? I thought that this would be a great recipe. But alas, I was proven wrong again. This book thoroughly enjoys making a fool of me, it seems. I mean the recipes just mock me, Biggest gripe? Not enough pomegranate. The heavy cream just mutes everything. And when I added an extra 4 tablespoons of pomegranate juice, all it did was increase the acidity, not the flavor. A little bit of orange blossom water goes quite far, but has a perfume-y flavor that does not work well with the recipe at all.

Pomegranate and Orange Blossom Water Creams

2t. corn flour
1c. milk
2T sugar
2 pomegranates (juiced)
2T orange blossom water
5T grenadine
1c. heavy cream

Simmer the corn flour, milk, and sugar. Chill. Add pomegranate juice, orange flower water, and grenadine. Fold in heavy cream just before churning. Freeze in freezer proof container or silicone muffin tins for a better shape. Garnish with leftover pomegranate seeds.

Frustrated with this failure, I decided to try it again my own way; as a sorbet. This way I wouldn't have to worry about the fat of the cream masking all my flavor, and hopefully my two main ingredients would get their time to shine. When formulating sorbets, I generally try to keep it to a 2/1 ratio of fruit juice or puree to agave or simple syrup.

Pomegranate and Orange Blossom Sorbet
2 pomegranates - juiced (makes approx 1c. juice)
1/2 T. orange blossom water
1/2 c. agave nectar
1/4t. red wine

I whisked everything together and threw it in the ice cream maker. While the flavor was stronger, the combination was still..well..disgusting. I won't lie. It tasted like a perfume, or like I decided to nibble on a flower or something. The texture was fine...and even drizzled with some honey it was bearable...but I would not recommend this recipe or my revision.

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!