Chocolate ice Cream with honey and stevia

I have been on the search for the yummiest ice cream recipe made without any refined sugar and after many batches of not so yummy ice cream I have finally perfected a delicious recipe. All the other ice cream recipes I have tried ended up being too hard to even get a spoon to sink into it and impossible to get out of the container after being in the freezer over night.
This ice cream is soft and creamy even after being in the freezer for days!
I have the kitchen aid ice cream maker attachment and that is what I used to make this recipe.
I am pre diabetic and am always looking for dessert recipes that I can use stevia in and still have them turn out right. This recipe also has honey in it but not enough to shoot up my blood sugar. I am not on any medication and manage my blood sugar with diet only. I am so excited to have something chocolate to eat!

2 C heavy cream
1 1/2 C whole milk
7 large egg yolks
1/3 C Hershey's Cocoa powder
2 t vanilla
2 T Truvia
3 1/2 T real honey ( runny not creamed)
1 T amaretto or 1t cinnamon

Put the cream and milk in a pot and scald it over med low heat. That is when it skims over and there are tiny little bubbles around the edges. Do not boil!
Beat the egg yolks with the cocoa, vanilla, Truvia, and honey in a bowl.
Temper this mixture by adding the cream and milk to the egg mixture in a steady stream while whisking continuously so as not to scramble the eggs. Not the whole thing though, after about a cup you can then whisk the egg mixture back into the pot with the scalded cream and milk.
Put back on the stove at med low heat and cook stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon. You can test by running your finger across the back of the spoon and if it leaves a line it's ready. Take off the stove and add the amaretto if you are using it. Pour through a sieve or strainer into a container and cover with plastic wrap against the mixture.
Refrigerate overnight. Pour into an ice cream freezer and churn for about 30 minutes.
Transfer to an air tight container to freeze harder. You can also eat it soft serve style right out of the ice cream freezer.

Biscuits

Right now I am obsessed with biscuit recipes. I have been reading the Lonesome Dove series and hearing Gus talk about making his famous sourdough biscuits got me drooling and thinking. Now I have been making biscuits all of my adult life and I do have some favorite recipes that I rely on but I have never had a sourdough biscuit and I have decided that this is something I have to try.

I needed a starter of course and this takes time when you are beginning from scratch. I don't want to buy one and I don't want to use commercial yeast either so there will be some trial and error happening for a while I'm afraid. Naturally, while this is going on and with biscuits on my mind I have decided to try some other recipes that have always intrigued me in the interim.

I mostly try to post recipes that are my own but these are not and I am putting them here because as I have said before this is an online recipe book for my daughters to access from all over the world. I too am traveling more than I thought I ever would and would like to have my recipes handy!

While waiting on my sourdough starter, I tried the Chuck Wagon Biscuits from Southern Living Hertitage Breads cookbook. They are spectacular! These biscuits are light and fluffy and will remarkably last for three days continuing to be moist and tender. Now I usually make biscuits for breakfast but this recipe needs a rise time so I will only make these as dinner biscuits. Pictures will come later because when I took these out of the oven my realtor had just come by to tell me I had an offer on my house which I am trying to sell in order to move to NYC to live with Micheal and Alexandra, my middle daughter and son in law. In all the excitement over the offer I forgot to take pictures!

My favorite morning biscuits are a cream biscuit and I have seen this recipe floating around in numerous places so I can't say where I originally found it. I am going to place it here and will add pics the next time I make them. I am also going to add the buttermilk biscuit recipe I tried this morning because they had such a good flavor and turned out just as they should with a nice crumb. I put together this recipe from perusing several different recipes from my cookbooks and the Internet. I have another post about my honey butter biscuits which are a drop biscuit and is a perfect accompaniment to fried chicken. I think the chuck wagon biscuit goes perfectly with chicken fried steak.

Chuck Wagon Biscuits
1 pkg. rapid rise yeast
1/2 cup tepid water
1 C buttermilk
1/4 C plus 1T vegetable oil
31/2 C flour
11/2T baking powder
1/4 t soda
1/8 C sugar
3/4 t salt
Combine yeast and water in a small mixing bowl stirring to dissolve. Let stand 5 min or until bubbly. Add buttermilk and oil to yeast mixture and stir well.
Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl add buttermilk mixture stirring with a fork until moistened. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead 3-4 times. Shape dough into 2 in balls place 1/8 in apart in a well greased cast iron skillet. Cover and let rise in a warm place(85degeees) for an hour and a half or until doubled in bulk.
Bake at 425 for 12 min or until golden brown.

Buttermilk Biscuits
2 C flour
2 t baking powder
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1/4 C plus 1T butter
1/2 t baking soda
1C buttermilk
Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender and mix until it resembles coarse meal. Disolve soda in the buttermilk beating with a fork. Pour into dry ingredients and mix with fork until moistened.
Turn out onto floured aurface and knead about 15 times. Roll out 3/4in thick and cut with 3in biscuit cutter and place on a greased baking sheet. You can reroll out the dough for more biscuits.             Bake at 450 for 12 min.
It makes about 6

Cream Biscuits
2 C flour
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
1C heavy whipping cream
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat whipping cream until soft peaks form(some recipes do not call for beating the cream but I think it makes them a bit lighter). Stir in flour mixture until blended. Turn dough out on lightly floured surface and knead 10-12 times. Roll out 3/4 in and cut with 3in biscuit cutter. Place on greased baking sheet.
Bake at 450 for 10-12 min. It makes for 6-8 biscuits.

Tiny Tot Pecan Pies

My Mom liked all things pecan and we used to make these a lot when I was growing up. This sweet treat is one that all my girls agree on as one of their favorites. I started Scarlet,

my youngest, making these in elementary school and she could do them  all on her own by middle school, sometimes not the prettiest but they tasted great.

I like these mini pecan pies even better than pecan pie itself. Samantha (oldest) says it is because it has a better ratio of filling to crust and I agree wholeheartedly! Alexandra (middle child) and I like more crust than pie anyway so I think we should make every pie mini.

Crust

1 C all purpose flour

1/4 t salt

1/2 C butter unsalted

4 1/2 oz. cream cheese

Mix together in a mixer and then chill.

Filling

1 egg slightly beaten

3/4  C brown sugar

1 t vanilla

1 T melted butter unsalted

1 C pecans

1 t southern comfort opt.

Mix together in a bowl with a whisk or fork.

In mini muffin tins take the chilled batter and roll into a ball and then press into the sides and bottom on the tin evenly to look like a pie crust. Fill the cups almost full, they will puff up a bit while baking.

Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes or until the crust edges are beginning to brown slightly.

Remove from oven cool a bit and then take out of the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Brownies

Every year when my girls were young I would make brownies on the first Friday of the first week of school. I figured they deserved a treat and they usually had arranged to have friends over to spend the night. The whole group was always excited to come home to a sweet treat.

They are so easy to make and they don't destroy the kitchen in the process. They are perfect to make while everybody is at school so that they have time to cool completely before somebody grabs one.

My youngest is starting her senior year in college and she attending school close to home so I decided to treat her. This time after seeing so many brownie recipes claiming to be the best, I decided to bake three different ones and let she and her friends decide which recipe is the best. I am making the ones I always make which should take her back to her childhood, another recipe using semisweet chocolate instead of the unsweetened one I am already making and one that I first saw in one of my cooks illustrated magazines that I recently saw adapted on the internet. I had made the cooks illustrated one a few years ago and I didn't care for them. They were just too gooey and you couldn't carry them with yours hands-they needed a plate.

I think the cooks illustrated brownies turned out almost exactly the same as the last time I made them, way to gooey and really hard to cut and plate. I cooked them a bit longer than last time but they didn't firm up at all. They don't have any leavening in them so maybe that is what I don't like. They remind me of some brownies that I made for a Christmas party, it was a Nigela Lawson recipe and they just wouldn't set up so I kept putting them back in the oven with no luck. When I finally had to serve them we scooped out the brownie with a plastic spoon, put a dollop of whipped cream on top and called them reindeer poop. Everybody loved them anyway.

Scarlet definitely recognized her childhood brownies and they are still her favorite. The semisweet version was popular for those that like a lighter chocolate flavor. All you have to do is substitute the Bakers unsweetened chocolate with the Bakers semisweet chocolate.

Brownie Recipe
3 oz. Bakers unsweetened chocolate
2/3 C butter
3 lg. eggs
1 1/2 C sugar
2 t vanilla
1 C all purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t kosher salt
1 C nuts opt.
Melt the chocolate with the butter in a pot on a a very low heat and whisk constantly till smooth. In a bowl beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla together with a whisk. Add in the chocolate and whisk till smooth. In a measuring cup, measure the flour then add the baking powder and salt then mix. Add this to the chocolate mixture and stir with a spatula just enough to incorporate. Add the nuts if you are using them.
Pour batter into a greased 9x9 or a small rectangle brownie pan. Bake at 350 for 28-30 min. Cool in pan on wire rack completely then cut in squares.

Here is a picture of all three brownies: orange plate are the brownies that is the recipe above, red plate are the brownies that used the semisweet chocolate, and the blue plate are the cooks illustrated brownies.

Banana Rum Coffee Cake with Browned Butter and Rum Drizzle

I had just made a pound cake that I had been dying to try, it was the pound cake from Chickens in the Road blogger with a pound of everything in it not just a pound of butter. It was delicious even though I opted not to put any kind of frosting or glaze on it but I don't think it needed it at all, it totally stood on its own.
My daughters told me they still preferred my pound cake which is posted on this blog as a citrus pound cake. It originally just had vanilla and nutmeg for flavoring which is delicious but I like the variation of citrus in the summer or the holidays.
Both Alexandra and Scarlet were leaving so I packed up what was left of the cake for them to take in the car. Scarlet and her boyfriend John were driving Alexandra up to Dallas to catch a flight to Spain to visit Samantha, my eldest.
My neighbor, Janis, had surgery and I had intended to take some of the cake over to her to aid in her recovery. Now with nothing to take over, I looked around the kitchen and saw an abundance of aging bananas so I started researching recipes looking for inspiration and this is what I came up with. The original recipe was a barefoot contessa banana cake that I spun off of. This coffee cake is scrumptious and just what I think Janis needed to help her feel better!

Cake
3 very ripe bananas
3/4 C sugar
1/2 C brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 C canola oil
2 lg. eggs
3 T dark rum ( I used Zaya12yr. aged)
2 C all purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t kosher salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t  nutmeg, freshly grated

With a paddle attachment beat the bananas on low speed until mashed then add the next 3 ingredients and incorporate. Now add the eggs and beat until smooth. Next add in the rum. Mix the next 5 ingredients together then add to the wet ingredients in the mixing bowl. Beat until smooth. Pour into a greased and floured 9 in. round cake pan. Sprinkle crumble on top.

Crumble
3 T flour
5 T brown sugar
2 T butter
Cinnamon
In a bowl use a fork to make the crumble pressing the ingredients together into the size of large peas.

Bake in the oven at 350degrees for 45 min. Or until a toothpick comes out almost clean.
Cool for 15 min. Then using a plate turn out the cake and then put a plate on the bottom and turn over right side up to cool.

Drizzle
1/2 stick butter
About a cup or cup and a half of powdered sugar
1t vanilla
1 T dark rum
Put the butter in a small pot over med. heat and boil until brown stirring with a spoon occasionally. Take off the heat and add the powdered sugar whisking smooth. Pour into a bowl and add the vanilla and rum. Whisk smooth. Add more powdered sugar until it is a drizzle consistency. Drizzle over the warm cake.

The cake is super moist and fluffy in case you can't tell from the photographs. Really good on the second day too!

Cherry Coffee Cake

I had some left over cherries that were fading fast so decided to make a coffee cake with them. It's the perfect size to accommodate my leftover cherries.

1 1/2-2 C cherries pitted and halved ( I used both Bing and Rainier)

Take the cherries and cook them in a sauce pan on the stove with a splash of water, enough sugar to make them sweet( I used very little sugar since my cherries were already sweet, maybe 1/4 C), and a couple of tablespoons of southern comfort. Cook them until they are thick and soft but not mush. Refrigerate.

1 C flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/8 t salt
1/2 C Greek yogurt ( I used Fage)
3 T melted butter
1 t vanilla
Sliced almonds for sprinkling on top

Take the dry ingredients and mix together in a bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in another bowl then add the wet to the dry and mix until just incorporated.
Spread half the batter into an 8 inch buttered and floured round cake pan. This will be hard to do just keep gently spreading with an off set knife until even. Take the cherries and spoon them out of the container leaving the excess syrup behind (but don't drain, you want a little bit) onto the batter in the pan evenly distributing. You want to use about 1 C of cherries. Spread the rest of the batter on top of the cherries. Take your time spreading gently, it's okay if some of the cherries peek out a bit. Sprinkle the top with sliced almonds. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. It will be golden brown on top. Remove from oven and run a knife around the edges.

I am lucky I have my grandmother's cake pans that have a scraper built in that runs around the bottom and sides of the pan. Everything comes out so easily!

Icing
1/4 C powdered sugar
1-2 T cream
1/4-1/2 t vanilla
Mix together and drizzle over top of coffee cake.

Cauliflower Risotto

I love risotto and I love mashed potatoes AND I love Alfredo sauce. This recipe satisfies those loves all wrapped up in one AND I get my vegetable!

1 large cauliflower head
1 C chicken stock
1C white wine
1 t salt
4 oz. cream cheese
2 T butter
1 C heaping, parmigiano reggiano
1 T fresh thyme, chopped fine
1/2 C cream
1 clove of garlic (optional) chopped

Cut up the cauliflower in to large florets and discard the stem. In a pot put the stock, wine, and cauliflower florets then sprinkle with 1 t salt. Bring to a boil with the lid on then move the lid slightly off so that some of the steam can escape. Cook until the cauliflower is soft making sure that you still have liquid in the bottom of the pot so as not to scorch the cauliflower. Add more stock and wine as needed. You want a little liquid in the bottom when you are through.

Do not drain. Add the butter, cream cheese, thyme and parm. cheese. If you are using garlic add it in now. Let stand a few minutes with the lid on. Add in the cream. Use a submersible blender and blend until smooth. Taste then add salt and pepper as you like.