Ice Cream!

After being absent for two weeks for no apparent reason, I’m again back with some yummy things I made lately! I had my last days of school this week and have my first exam on May 19th, so I have a month of studying ahead of me. I’m sure I’ll be able to fit in some cooking and baking, though, so I’ll keep posting pictures!

Because the weather has gotten a lot better over the past weeks, I decided to start using my ice cream maker again. I love making ice cream! I made two kinds so far, but there are many more flavours that I’d like to try next.

Above: almond-speculaas ice cream. To make this, I ground half a cup of toasted and half a cup of raw almonds in a food processor, added one cup of hazelnut-almond-ricemilk, one tablespoon of raw almond butter, half a cup + two tablespoons of sugar and a bit of almond extract and mixed all of that together. I chilled it overnight and put it in the ice cream machine the next day, adding pieces of speculaas a few minutes before it was done. I like this ice cream a lot, but there’s room for improvement in the recipe… I think I’ll use all almond butter instead of grinding almonds myself next time, because I couldn’t grind them entirely and the icecream wasn’t completely smooth. My Dad also thought the icecream was very heavy, so I’d probably use less almonds an more rice milk if I’d have to make it again. Still, it’s a good dessert and I know I won’t have trouble finishing any leftovers…

I also wanted a lighter type of ice cream, so I made this. It’s Lavender-Apricot, made of 3/4 cup of soy yogurt, 1/3 cup of apricot preserves, 1/2 cup of rice milk, 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract and 1-2 teaspoons of dried lavender flowers. I like the combination of these two flavours and the ice cream is very light and healthier than the speculaas one, but it wasn’t perfect either. Specifically the lavender flowers were something my parents were a bit sceptical about: My Mom said they look a little like bugs in the ice cream and my Dad says he doesn’t like the taste and texture the whole flowers provide. My Mom, however, says she does like that taste and personally, I think the flowers make the icecream look pretty, so it’s not all that bad. I would use less lavender next time (and maybe more apricot preserves), as the taste is a little dominant this way. Maybe grinding it or making some kind of infusion and using that would be a good idea… but I don’t know. I still like this ice cream the way it is.

One other thing before I go to bed: Appelflappen! They’re sheets of puff pastry filled with an apple and raisin mixture. So simple. I had one piece of regular puff pastry left, so I used that up, the other ones are whole-wheat puff pastry.

I’ll be back soon! Hopefully with more ice cream pictures, because I really, really like ice cream these days.