 |
| Photo by Brinn Willis {BMW} Photography |
Our blog started about 5 or so years ago as a family blog, and since then it has served as some combo of food/family/sewing blog depending on our moods. Now it is mostly sewing blog, which is as it should be, Holli is the talented one in this family with her awesome sewing skills. She is taking the blog by storm, but every so often I flex my creative muscles, hijack her blog, and post about what I am passionate about...ICE CREAM! So from now on consider this a subcategory of the Stitched blog called Scooped. In an odd way ice cream and handmade clothes have a couple things in common: 1) They are homemade and 2) a lot of people would rather just buy them instead of making them themselves.
That being said, let's get to the heart of the matter. My newest flavor, Smokey S'mores.
I have a love hate relationship with s'mores. I like the idea of them. I like the social hang by the fire vibe, casually toasting your marshmallows on a stick and the combination of crunchy graham cracker, with toasty charred marshmallow and rich delicious chocolate seems like a match made in heaven. However I feel the execution is flawed. When you bite in, the graham cracker crumbles and the whole thing falls apart.
The standard Hershey's bar is way to thick and is really just a small step above Palmer's chocolate in quality (you know the waxy kind you get covered in foil in the shape of little basketballs or baseballs in your Easter basket). It is just kind of messy and I wish there was a way to change that. Enter Holli the genius who changed my s'more world. She uses fudge stripe cookies and marshmallows. Now my world is changed. No more crumbling graham crackers no more giant disproportionate chocolate bar! I mean it still is messy, but that is just how it goes with s'mores and that is ok. Life is messy sometimes. Now before you go crazy and go off on me in the comments section, know that this is a safe place to talk about our feelings and I am opening up a very vulnerable part of my life right now. So don't go off the deep end s'more purists, you can still keep things just the way you like them.
The standard Hershey's bar is way to thick and is really just a small step above Palmer's chocolate in quality (you know the waxy kind you get covered in foil in the shape of little basketballs or baseballs in your Easter basket). It is just kind of messy and I wish there was a way to change that. Enter Holli the genius who changed my s'more world. She uses fudge stripe cookies and marshmallows. Now my world is changed. No more crumbling graham crackers no more giant disproportionate chocolate bar! I mean it still is messy, but that is just how it goes with s'mores and that is ok. Life is messy sometimes. Now before you go crazy and go off on me in the comments section, know that this is a safe place to talk about our feelings and I am opening up a very vulnerable part of my life right now. So don't go off the deep end s'more purists, you can still keep things just the way you like them.
In my ice cream I wanted to capture that Americana lazy summer nights by the bonfire vibe. Sure I could throw pieces of graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate chips in vanilla ice cream and call it a day, but it just seemed kind of lazy, which I guess, like s'mores, is the American way. It just didn't seem special, I wanted a more grown-up taste, but that would still spark some sort of emotion or nostalgia. When I close my eyes I can smell the smoke of the fire and feel the crunch of the s'more. That got me thinking . Other than the core ingredients I needed 2 things, crunch and smoke. How could I get smoke into ice cream? Would it be good? I could throw in liquid smoke, but that would just assault the palate. Then I started to comb through the internet to see what others have done. Then it hit me, like any good BBQ I could use charred wood. So I found some food grade toasted french oak from on online home brewing and wine making website (here is the link in case you are interested)! Score! It was only like $4 bucks! Double-Score! The toasted oak gave it kind of a caramel flavor with a nice smokey aftertaste, but it was still subtle. Really nice if you ask me!
The next thing was the graham crackers and the crunch. How could I keep them from getting soggy? I needed that crunchy texture. So I decided to cover them in chocolate and that would kill 2 birds with one stone. I went with a 60% dark because I felt that bitterness would lend itself to the smokey flavor better than the standard milk chocolate. At one point I bought some mini graham crackers, but waited too long to make the ice cream so Charly and Caroline ate them. Then when I went back to the store I couldn't find them again. So I went with teddy grahams. I know teddy grahams in fancy ice cream?! You can't really tell once they are cover in chocolate, but they added more of a crunch because they are thicker than a regular graham cracker. I did break them in half though to make them a little smaller. Finally I made a batch of homemade marshmallows and toasted them with my Crème Brûlée torch..
I have had this flavor in my head for a long time. I am glad I finally got around to making it and it turned out way better than I thought it would! I brought it to the Behind the Beautiful Image Retreat put on by Brinn Willis of {BMW} Photography so I could get free beautiful pictures of it in exchange for letting everyone in the class try it. I was particularly excited for FW Willis to try it, as he is the authority in all things manly and woodsy. Just look at the stuff he creates with his bare hands on his blog I Built That! So without further adieu:
Ice cream base ingredients
2 cups whole milk
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon corn starch
1 1/4 cup cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) cream cheese
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
1 vanilla bean (1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
3/4 cup medium toast oak chips
**cheese cloth
Homemade marshmallow ingredients
3 tablespoons (typically 3 packets) unflavored gelatin powder1/4 cup cold water (for gelatin)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup water
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Chocolate covered teddy grahams ingredients
1/2 cups chopped 60% cacao dark chocolate (or chips)
1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 cup teddy grahams broke in half or small pieces of graham crackers
For the base:
Soften cream cheese and add in a large bowl with the salt. Reserve 2 tablespoons milk and add in the corn starch in a small cup, mix well. In a medium pot add remaining milk, cream, sugar and corn starch. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. Add in wood chips, stir and cover. Let wood ships steep for 20-30 minutes. I did 30 and really liked the flavor, if you want to tone down the smoke let it steep for less. Strain mixture through a sieve and cheese cloth pushing out as much cream as you can from the oak chips. Rinse and dry pot and return cream. You do not want any wood returning to the base. If using vanilla bean, split vanilla bean and scrape out seeds. Add seeds and pod to the pot. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and slowly mix in milk/corn starch slurry. Return to heat for about 1 minute stirring frequently. slowly whisk in cream into cream cheese. If using the vanilla extract add it now and stir. Place base into zip-lock bag. If needed for immediate churning add zip-lock to an ice bath for 30 minutes to chill. If not place in fridge over night so the flavors can marinate.
For the marshmallows
Spray a 9x13 baking pan with cooking spray. I lined mine with foil for easy clean up and then sprayed. Add gelatin into the bowl of the stand mixer. Combine 1/4 cup cold water and vanilla in a measuring cup and pour this over the gelatin while whisking gently with a fork. Let sit for about 5 minutes. This is called blooming the gelatin and once it sits will become firm. Pour 1/4 cup water into the a medium saucepan. Pour the sugar, corn syrup, and salt on top. Do not stir! Place the pan over medium-high heat and bring it to a full, rapid boil — all of the liquid should be boiling. Remember do not stir it will cause the sugar to crystallize. Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the sauce pan and continue boiling until the sugar mixture reaches 240°F to 250°F. Take the pan off the heat and remove the thermometer. Turn on your mixer to medium speed. Carefully pour the hot sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin. Be careful not to pour it on the whisk attachment as the hot sugar mixture can splash. Once the mixture is all added and foaming turn the speed to high and mix for about 12 minutes. You will start to see it transform into beautiful marshmallow goo. Spray spatula and pour mixture into baking pan as soon as you can (don't worry about getting it all out of the bowl, that is impossible). Smooth flat and dust with powdered sugar. Cover and let sit over night to firm up. Cut up into small cubes about the size of a small store bought marshmallow. Dust with more powdered sugar once cut to prevent sticking. You will only use a small portion of the pan for the ice cream. So only cut up about 1 1/2 cups. You can cut the rest of the pan into larger squares if you wish and use them for roasting on the fire or hot cocoa. Place cut up marshmallows on a cookie sheet and torch until they reach the desired doneness you like with your toasted marshmallows. *Note: spraying your knife with cooking spray while cutting will help as the marshmallows are very sticky.
For the chocolate covered graham crackers
Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Break teddy grams in half or chop graham crackers into small pieces. Make sure to discard any crumbs. add chocolate to a microwave safe bowl. Add oil and stir. Heat in microwave on 50% heat for 30 seconds. Stir and repeat until there are no lumps and chocolate is completely melted. Add graham crackers to bowl and stir until they are covered on all sides with chocolate. Remove with fingers, chopsticks, or tweezers and lay on parchment paper. Make sure they do not touch. They key it to have them in a protective shell of chocolate so they don't get soggy. Place in freezer for 5 minutes to harden. Take out and roll them in your hands breaking any small pieces of chocolate off.
Final assembly
Churn ice cream base according to manufacture's instructions. Add a thin layer of ice cream, then add a layer of toasted marshmallows and chocolate cover graham crackers. Repeat until ice cream is gone. Finally layer toasted marshmallow and chocolate covered graham crackers on top. Place parchment paper on top and press gently down. Freeze for at least 5 hrs, but for more firm results freeze over night. Serve and enjoy!
