It's ice cream season in the Boston area. Granted, I'm kind of a year round ice cream girl, but from June to about September, I make a lot more ice cream. Spicy ice cream, chocolatey ice cream, tea-based ice cream, pumpkin, cadbury cream egg. Pretty much everything is fair game.
The other day, I made my normal chocolate ice cream from this recipe in 1000 (or maybe 1001) chocolate recipes. It uses cocoa, so it has a rich chocolately thick feel despite being made mostly with milk. I boost it a bit by adding Godiva Liqueur. I probably could have added more, but adding alcohol can be pretty touchy in ice cream, because it lowers the freezing point.
I have a few Coptic friends. The Coptic religion practices fasting. Most of the time, this means no meat (easy enough with ice cream), no dairy and no egg (not so easy). I've been investigating ideas for fast-friendly ice cream for the summer months. It has to be good enough that dairy addicts will find it acceptable, and ice cream afficionados like myself will have seconds. Maybe I'm being too picky, but I've made ice cream for forever... or at least as long as I've been knitting, and I'm sure I can do this.
This weekend is my first attempt. Spicy vegan cupcakes, fast-friendly frosting, and fast-friendly ice cream for Sunday.
Spicy Fast-Friendly Cupcakes
(makes a dozen)
Ingredients:
1.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
0.75 cups of liquid sugar (I used a mix of maple, agave nectar and honey)
2 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
0.5 cups mandarin orange tea, steaped strong
0.25 cups vanilla rice milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
0.25 cups vegetable oil
1 tbsp arrowroot powder with 1 tbsp water
Almost like Instructions:
Mix the dry ingredients (or if you are like me, toss them into a medium size mixing bowl and wave a whisk through the ingredients for a couple seconds).
Steap the tea (I used 2 tea bags) with about a half cup of hot water until it is dark and then press the tea bags. Add rice milk until you have 0.75 cups of liquid. Add the arrowroot and the additional tablespoon of water to the liquid and mix well. Pour right over the dry ingredients. Measure out the liquid sugars (I find the flavor evens out if you use a mix, otherwise the recipe tastes strongly of either maple or honey) and pour into the dry ingredients. Add vanilla and oil and mix for about a minute.
I cooked these for about 16 minutes in muffin tins and let them cool for a few hours before frosting. These seem to age well (aka, they tasted better the next day than they did the day of baking).
Recipe heavily influenced by the White Cake recipe. I love Veg Web, and I love this recipe. However, making it as the original recipe called for makes the cupcakes taste strongly of cereal and maple - much more like breakfast than dessert.
As for the vegan 'ice cream,' it was pronounced tasty by one of the fasters, but she was consuming it in mostly liquid form. Being outside without enough ice in the cooler meant the ice cream was really more like ice drink. It would have been terrific with a glug of vodka in it.
