Ginger Bread Almond Ice Cream Sandwiches

Its December and that means two things, hot weather and Christmas!!!! Its been a funny start to December in Melbourne, hot weather coupled with torrential downpours converting our once mild little town into a tropical oasis. There’s not much you can do to get away from the sticky-ness, apart from jumping in a swimming pool, or if you’re in the city - the Yarra river. Note – I do not advocate the practice of jumping into the Yarra river, do that at your own peril. Another way to get away from the heat is to eat ice cream.

I’ll find any excuse to eat ice cream, I’ve been known to eat ice cream in the middle of winter, and I don’t mean sitting at home on my couch….I mean going out and hunting down some gelato! So considering that Christmas is just around the corner (oh gosh…already!), I decided to make ginger bread almond ice cream sandwiches.



The ginger bread cookies are chewy, so when you bite into the sandwich you get the soft spicy goodness of the cookie, coupled with a cool creamy ice cream middle. I wanted to make the ice cream really creamy, similar to commercial ice cream sandwiches so you’ll notice that my recipe calls for 2 types of cream to boost the fat content of the ice cream…hmmmm fat. If your health conscious, you can skip that and just use more of one type, but lets face it, how many people who are making their own ice cream are truly health conscious? I’ve also devised an easy way to make ice cream without owning an ice cream machine. It involves a KitchenAid and funnily enough, a freezer. Check out the recipe for more info.

While I was making the ginger bread cookies, Daz asked me to make him ginger bread men. I wasn’t going to deny him, I really didn’t have an excuse not to make them, dough was ready to go and I already had a ginger bread man cookie cutter. And they were so cute in the end anyway, especially with their green t-shirt. Everyone had a lot of fun, until someone got their head bitten off!



Chewy Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients:

Makes roughly 30 cookies.

3/4 cup malt extract or tracel or golden syrup
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/8 cup castor sugar
1/3 cup water
80 gram butter, softened
3 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method

1. Combine together the tracel, brown sugar, sugar, water and butter in a medium sized bowl until smooth. Sift together the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, cloves and cinnamon. Gently stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until all of the ingredients are properly combined. Make a large ball and wrap the dough in gladwrap and place in the fridge for least 4 hours or overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to achieve roughly a 5mm thickness. Using a round cookie dough cutter, cut dough then transfer cookies to an ungreased baking paper lined baking tray. Make sure to leave a small distance between each cookie, they wont get much bigger, but you don’t want to run the risk of them sticking together.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven and place on wire racks to cool. At this stage the cookies can be placed in an airtight container and will keep at room temperature for 1 week. If constructing ice cream sandwiches, once cooled place cookies in the freezer ready to have ice cream filling added.

Almond Ice cream

INGREDIENTS

100ml almond milk
3 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
50ml pouring cream
80 mL double cream
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped or 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste

METHOD

1. Bring almond milk to the boil in a small saucepan, once boiled add vanilla bean, and set aside.

2. In a medium sized stainless steel bowl whisk egg yolks and sugar together by hand, then pour almond milk onto the egg yolk mixture while whisking. Cook mixture over a bain-marie while whisking continuously for about 10 minutes or until it begin to thicken thickened. A good way of testing it is if it still smells like raw egg than its not cooked enough, or if it coats the back of a spoon and keeps a straight line when you wipe some away with your finger.

3. Once thickened cool sabayon over ice while still whisking. Once completely cooled whisk both types of cream into the sabayon. Place the mixture into an ice cream machine and follow manufacturers instruction. Or use my method: A couple of hours before starting place your KitchenAid stainless steel bowl in the freezer. Once you get to the cooled sabayon/cream mixture, transfer to the frozen mixer bowl and whisk with your KitchenAid for 2 minutes. Transfer to the freezer for 15-20minutes then whisk again for 2 minutes, making sure to scrap down the sides. Repeat this again 4 or 5 times until the ice cream becomes the consistency of a thick soft serve. No need to buy a ice cream machine, and you’ll get perfect, icicle free ice cream every time!

4. To make the ice cream fillers for the sandwiches, place ice cream in a glad wrap lined rectangular plastic container. For thick ice cream sandwiches, make sure that that ice cream is roughly 2 cm thick. Cover the top of the ice cream with more glad wrap and place in the freezer for 2-3 hours to fully set. Once set, use the same sized cookie cutter you used for making the gingerbread cookies and cut round ice cream sandwich fillers. Place back in the freezer for 10 minutes or so and then assemble your sandwiches. Cookie, ice cream filler, cookie……enjoy!!

While we’re on the subject of Christmas, on the weekend Daz and I went along to the Scandinavian Christmas Bazaar. It was a last minute decision, so I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to be instore, I was imagine fire breathing donkey’s, three legged men and loads of Swedish meatballs. Sadly, of the three only the last one was on offer. We had a quick bite to eat, devouring Räksmörgås, Æbleskiver's and Frikadeller's . It seemed like fun, so I’ll definitely be adding it to my calendar for next year.

Æbleskiver

Frikadeller

Results - Roasted Duck Breast, Braised Turnips, and a Mango and Lemon Sauce

Sometimes I wonder how chef's come up with flavour combinations. Do they have the Issac Newton moment when an apple falls out of a tree smacking them plainly in the face?, or do they purposefully set out to challenge our traditional take on flavour unions? I'm not exactly sure how Jacques Reymond thought of putting mango and turnip together, but let me tell you it was a stroke of genius! I really didn't think that my favourite part of this dish would be the combination of the sweet juicy mango with the soft but tender turnip. And to be brutally honest, that is the only aspect of this entire dish that I will probably be making again. Before yesterday I had no idea that there was more than one use for a turnip, the first being a implement to throw at your partner when they eat the last piece of chocolate in the pantry.

I totally failed with the pickeled wombok (aka a Chinese cabbage that sounds strangely like a small furry animal). I don't know if I read the recipe wrong, or I totally missed the point, but I followed every step and at the end of it I was left with slightly damp crisp cabbage. I stared at it for a little while, kinda hoping it would magically turn into the right thing, but 20 minutes later and nothing. So I got frustrated and just wilted the whole lot in a hot pan, I may have committed a culinary sin, but in the end I wasn't exactly overcome with a taste sensation, so I'm not too upset that I got it wrong.

The other thing that I really liked about this dish was the orange and lemon sauce. I really enjoyed the fragrant star anise and szechuan pepper in the sauce, and I thought that the whole thing came together really well, who would have thought that orange and duck were a match made in heaven!!! The French may be onto something here. Once again though, the big spoiler was the limp, drab tasting cabbage. I strongly recommend making the rest of the dish and leave out the accompanying pickled cabbage. Maybe just steam some crunchy string beans, or better yet just save your stomach for a huge serving of dessert. Speaking of dessert, onto my last challenge in the Jacques Reymond 3 course dinner. Stay tuned for the sugar high!

Roasted Duck Breast, Braised Turnips, and a Mango and Lemon Sauce

And now for the main course to the Jacques Reymond 3 course delight! So far the appetizer and the starter have gone well. I'm not so sure about the main course though. While flipping through the Cuisine du Temps book I had a real hard time settling on something. Nothing really caught my eye, other than the suckling pig. But that seemed a little indulgent considering normally you have to buy a whole suckling pig, a challenge even to the well seasoned gluttons that Daz and I are. So instead I'm going to attempt the roasted duck breast. I'm a fan of duck, so hopefully this will turn out well, however the mango and lemon sauce screams a little "sweet and sour" to me which apparently is the whole point to this dish, hopefully it will be a good combination.

After reading through the recipe, it also suggests to serve the dish with a side of pickled wombok. Now, if your a little ignorant like me....no its not a small hairy Australian marsupial, its actually Chinese cabbage. So in fact this recipe includes a bonus side recipe, helping with the all important veggie count.

As always, here is the recipe and stay tuned for the happy ending.

Roasted Duck Breast, Braised Turnips, and a Mango and Lemon Sauce, Serves 4

This Dish is all about the four tastes, saltiness (duck), acidity (lemon), sourness (turnip) and sweetness (mango)

4 duck breasts, skin on

1/2 teaspoon flaked sea salt

Lemon Sauce

2 tablespoons palm sugar, grated

1/4 teaspoon Szechuan pepper

1/4 cinnamon stick

1/2 star-anise

3 cardamon pods

zest 1/2 lemon

1 teaspoon julienned ginger

25 mL sherry vinegar

250mL orange juice

1 teaspoon custard powder

juice of 1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon ginger juice

Braised Turnips

2 small turnips, peeled and sliced

1 tablespoon sugar

30g butter

100 mL chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

1 mango sliced

Clean the duck breast of excess sinew, score the skin and rub with salt. Place the duck skin side down in a heavy frying pan on low heat to render out the fat layer between the skin and the meat. It is not necessary to preheat the pan. Do not turn the breast until it has cooked three-quarters of the way through - approximately 15 minutes. Cook the other side for 30 seconds to a minute. Remove from pan and rest for approximately 5 minutes

Lemon Sauce

Caramelise the palm sugar in a small saucepan. Add the spices, lemon zest and ginger and cook until fragrant. Deglaze with sherry vinegar and orange juice and reduce by half to 125 mL. To finish the sauce add the lemon juice and ginger juice to taste. Adjust consistency with custard powder.

Braised turnips

Caramelise sugar in a frying pan until golden. Add a couple of small knobs of butter and the turnips. Once glazed lightly, add a little chicken stock and simmer gently until tender. You need just enough chicken stock so that by the time the liquid has evaporated, the turnips are cooked. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To Serve

Put sliced mango in the center of the plate and place braised turnips on top, then duck breast, skin side up. Pour over lemon sauce. Pickled wombok is also and excellent accompaniment to this dish

Pickled Wombok

A fresher, more textured alternative to traditional sauerkraut.

1/2 wombok

1 salad onion, sliced

1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, lightly crushed

1 tablespoon clarified butter

125 mL white vinegar

125mL white wine

1 bay leaf

2 stalks thyme

3 juniper berries

2 garlic cloves, crushed

75mL chicken stock

pinch of salt

Separate the leaves and stalks of the wombok. Slice the stalks thinly on an angle.

In a medium sized saucepan, sweat onion and pepper in a little clarified butter until soft. Add vinegar and reduce until almost evaporated. Add white wine, bay leaf, thyme, juniper berries and garlic and reduce by half. Add chicken stock to taste, season with a pinch of salt.

To cook wombok, bring pickling liquid to the boil and pour over the wombok. Remove from liquid to serve.

Sarti

Sarti6 Russell PlMelbourne, 3000(03) 9639 7822

Daz and I often perve on people…..of both sexes, I know its a little weird and slightly strange, but I'm not like most girls. I love checking out shoes and dresses and I often try to get Daz involved, but he’s just not that into females shoes. I must admit though, I'm the one who actively points candidates out to him. While we were dining at Sarti on a particular warm evening we spotted an attractive lady who had a stunning black dress on. As I was admiring her dress another woman walked in with the exact same black dress on. We all stared and were eager to find out what would happen when they both discovered they weren't the most original pair in the room. About a minute later our curiosity was satisfied when the original lady returned to her seat and noticed the other lady sitting at the next table. A few nervous laughs later and it was all sorted. It was such a fascinating incident, we all know how competitive women can get, especially when out on the town wearing your favourite little black dress. I don’t know what we were expecting, maybe some mid meal entertainment, nothing like a scrag fight!

Enough about the scenery, onto the food. We decided to share some of the stuzzichini to start. If you don’t already know stuzzichini are small share plates similar to tapas. So we had Tartare of wagyu beef, porcini acid, smoked tomato, pine nut oil. Big pieces of fleshy juicy wagyu, crunchy pieces of pine nut all topped with very smoky tiny tomatoes. The oil was quite smoky giving the meat a distinct bbq taste. I really enjoyed this dish, although I couldn’t help but want some nice pickled gherkins.



Next we had Zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta and herbs, the zucchini was tender but still crunchy. The outer batter was really crispy and the filling was fluffy and pundgent from the mixed herbs and spices added to the mix.



There was no way that we weren’t going to order the ‘Neo Nati fritti’, soft shell crab, ‘peperoni’ and ‘n’ duja crumble’. If you didn’t already know, Daz is a soft shell crab enthusiast, in that he will chose that over any other dish available. So we were really pleased when it arrived and lived up to its name. Thick pieces of juicy crab, with a spicy pepper "stir fry" underneath. Once again the outer shell was slightly crunchy with the soft flesh inside still very juicy. The crab was extremely fresh which was a nice little bonus.



The stuzzichini were really good, sadly the rest of the meal was a little bit downhill. I’ll just warn you now.

I ordered the Spinach ‘tortelli’, filled with rabbit, jerusalem artichoke puree, roasted hazelnuts, and rabbit broth. The pasta was a little undercooked, it wasn’t al dente it was “al raw-o”. It was even more evident considering the rabbit filling was very delicate and moist. The puree was fantastic along with the addition of hazelnut and rabbit broth. I really enjoyed it, however the undercooked pasta was a bit of a let down for me.



Miss Coco LV ordered the pasta of the day, Pasta with duck ragout. It was good to see big pieces of duck scattered throughout the pasta, but once again the same issue as above, the pasta was slightly undercooked, so that totally ruined it for me.



Daz being the big red blooded man that he is ordered the Chargrilled 1824 ribeye ‘con la vera caponata siciliana’. The opposite to above happened here. Daz asked for a medium rare steak an instead he got a medium almost medium/well steak. It was such a shame considering it would have been a beautiful piece of meat. The other draw back was that the caponata was really oily, not just a little bit, there was a puddle of oil left over on Daz's plate after he finished. The other weird thing was that the steak was served on such a small narrow plate, making it almost impossible for Daz to eat. At one point the steak almost ended up in his lap.



After the main meals we were really disappointed, not to mention the service was lacking. The were very few of the wait staff that actually smiled, and none of the dishes were explained to us. So as soon as the dish arrived it was plonkt on the table and then not a word was said. I’m one for detail, especially with food, so found it really impersonal. Hopefully the desserts would pick up our mood.

Daz ordered the Lemon tart. Poor Daz, he has such a bad record when desserts are concerned. He was expecting a nice slice of lemon tart, or an small individual lemon tart, instead he got three tiny cubes of lemon tart with a lovely display of fruit and crumble and cream. It was a little strange considering the rest of the meal was served in a very traditional sense, but his dessert had a very modern appearance. The tart was pretty good though, nice and tangy with a crispy caramelized top. However Daz’s disappointment was not overcome by flavour, I guess great expectations are easily shattered



I had the Pistachio ‘panna cotta’, caramel salted popcorn. Fail!!!! The pistachio panna cotta didnt taste like pistachio, it was a little stodgy and the caramel salted popcorn was neither caramel nor salted....but it did have popcorn in it though. I'm not exactly sure what happened here, but the whole thing was a massive failure.



Miss Coco LV had the Chocolate semi freddo, traces of pumpkin. Thankfully this saved the day as far as desserts are concerned. The ice cream was really chocolaty and the semi freddo itself was really nice. I didn’t get a chance to try the pumpkin puree though. Nice idea though, matching pumpkin and chocolate together. There were no complaints coming from Miss Coco LV and she managed to finish the whole thing.



From my perspective Sarti was a pretty big let down. The surroundings are modern and really well done, but the service and some of the food weren’t quite up to scratch. I do recommend to go for the stuzzichini, maybe order a couple of cocktails and sit in their court yard and enjoy a few share plates with a bunch of friends, and then go somewhere else for dinner.

*It looks like Sarti is no longer in the top 100 restaurants of Australia. They were ranked 84 when the guide was released earlier this year, but the Gourmet Traveller website only have 98 entrants in the top 100. So at the moment it looks like Sarti and Lucio's are off the list. Stay tuned for more information....if I get any.

Results - Fresh tomato Broth with Saffron, Ricotta Fritter

Has anyone else noticed that I seem to be cooking alot of "balls"? For some reason I seem to be attracted to spherical shaped food items, and you know what?.....I'm not complaining. How can you not love ball shaped food, they're easy to handle, are oh so cute and fit nicely in your mouth.....wait, am I still talking about food? Maybe I should get back on track.

First lets talk about the taste. I made the broth and decided to serve it at room temperature, not warmed or chilled like the recipe suggested. It was a pretty warm day when I made it so the soup temperature was just right. All of the flavors blended together reminded me of warm summer day, fresh coriander, tomato, a hint of chili and the freshness of lemongrass . My only problem is that for some reason tomato soups/broths always cling to the back of my throat and give me an unpleasant sharp feeling. I enjoyed the first 5 or 6 mouth fulls, but then I was over it. I did however love the ricotta balls, so cute and tasty. I will definitely be making the fritters again, but as small finger food to kick start a party.

Onto the actual recipe, it could not have been easier. Put everything in a pot and let it reduce, you don't need any skill for that. I was a little concerned at the end of the cooking time when I noticed that the whole process only made about a cup full of broth. I only made a half serve, but that wasn't enough for one person let alone two. So I decided to deviate away from the recipe and crushed the veggies while they were still sitting in my strainer and that seemed to extract some extra juice. I managed to squeeze out more than a few extra serves, so that fixed my problem. I ended up with a lot more tomato pulp but the second straining took care of any extra tomato bits.

Before cooking

After cooking

The ricotta balls were even easier. The only difficult part was waiting for the batter to be ready, and that was only difficult because I've always had a issue with patience. At the end of all the frying I was left with a fair bit of batter, so I decided to whack in a heap of cracked pepper, a little extra slat and make little salt and pepper beignet...oh they were so yummy! Might throw in some cheese next time and make cheese and black pepper balls. I've decided that Jacques Reymond is the batter king, so far anything that I've cooked involving flour and liquid has turned out to be awesome. At the end of this, I might turn into a batter ball myself!

ABOVE PLUS BELOW

EQUALS =

So, we've eaten the appetizers and now we've consumed the consommé, I guess next is the main attraction. And guess what? I haven't even worked out what its going to be!! I think I will have look through the book again........maybe after dinner though.

Fresh tomato Broth with Saffron, Ricotta Fritter

My attempt at making the appetizers for my Jacques Reymond 3 course dinner went really well, and now for the starter course. I decided to choose something light and and refreshing, something that reminds me of summer - considering we have some nice warm weather coming our way. So here is the recipe for Fresh tomato Broth with Saffron and Ricotta Fritters. Of course photos and the full wrap up is on its way shortly.

Fresh tomato Broth with Saffron, Ricotta Fritter

Serves 4

TOMATO BROTH

1.5kg tomatoes, each cut into 6

1 celery stick, sliced

1 leek

3 shallots

2 garlic cloves, halved

2 red birdseye chillies, halved and deseeded

2 fresh kaffir lime leaves

1 knob of ginger, peeled and sliced

1 stick of lemon grass, crushed

400 ml of water

1 teaspoon sea salt flakes

1 teaspoon of sugar (or to taste)

1/4 bunch of coriander

1/4 bunch basil

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads

RICOTTA MIXTURE

100g ricotta

1 teaspoon basil, chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons coriander, chopped

2 teaspoon of semi dried tomatoes, cut into small cubes

salt and pepper

BEIGNET BATTER

50g plain/all purpose flour

1/3 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1 egg

35 mL soda water

10g melted butter

Note: The Beignet batter needs to be made an hour before being used

BROTH

In a large saucepan, combine all ingredients except for herbs and saffron. Cook gently at a low simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat, add basil and coriander and let herbs infuse for 5 minutes. Pass through a fine sieve and collect broth. Add saffron threads and let infuse for 5 minutes. Strain again and set aside until ready to serve.

RICOTTA MIX

In a medium bowl, mix ricotta, herbs and semi dried tomatoes and season. Roll into balls and set aside

BEIGNET BATTER

In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the centre, add the egg and mix lightly. Add the soda water and gently whisk. Add the melted butter and mix

TO SERVE

In a saucepan, heat the broth, but don't boil.

Heat a frying pan with enough oil to deep fry. Dip ricotta balls in the batter and coat well with a fork. Add to the pan and deep fry. Remove and place on a paper towel to absorb oil.

Pour broth in the bowl and place the ricotta fritter in the center.

NOTE: the broth is also delicious served cold as a very refreshing chilled summer soup

Results - Gougères

Gougères are French for yum!* I thought I would do the smart thing and only make a half serve of the recipe. You know, there’s only Daz and I and I don’t want to be tempted with too many cheesy puffs lying around the house. I know that’s a common problem people could face, so I don’t want to subject myself to it. With these delicious puffy, cheesy clouds of joy Daz and I set a new record. They were all eaten before I even finished taking photos of them. Thats really impressive!! And then came the wave of sadness...no more cheese puffs to snack on.


This has got to be the easiest top 100 recipe I’ve tried so far. It seriously couldn’t be similar, prepare your ingredients, add them together in the assigned order, bake and eat. And yet I still managed to stuff it up!!


The recipe calls for diced gruyere, so that’s what I did. But when I added it to the hot flour/butter/egg mixture the cubes of cheese weren’t melting like I had expected them to. Did I cut them too big? Did I fiddle and fumble too long and my mixture was now too cold for the cheese to melt? The recipe said nothing about chunky pieces of cheese in it. So I thought I would stir the mixture a little more. Still no difference. Ok, I’ll just spoon them onto the tray, cross my fingers and hope they’ll rise.....and thats what they did. But even better than that, the chunky pieces of cheese melted and then went all crispy and caramelised so in every gougère you would have a lovely big pieces of chruncy cheese...oh I’m in heaven. I totally understand now why Jacques said “Don't use other types of cheese or you won't get the right result”, its well worth the result. But I think my over mixing prevented my puffs from “cracking” like Jacques. A small price to pay, but I wont be making that mistake again!


My other issue was that the puffs took alot longer than 25 minutes to cook. More like 35 minutes, in the end I took them out because I was frustrated by the wafting smell of cheese throughout my house making me extremely hungry, so they weren’t quite as dark as I would have liked. But that had absolutely no impact on the deliciousness of them!

What I really love about this recipe is....no piping bag!!!! Usually with choux pastry you have to pull out the old bag and leave half of the mixture stuck to the side of your implement. Not in this case, all you need is a trusty spoon......oh oh....which means there are much more finger licking opportunities! Bonus score!


Now I’m really looking forward to the next challenge of my three course Jacques Reymond meal. By the way I’m glad I’m having other meals in between the courses, that way there’s no chance of me starving, considering I’m only cooking one course every couple of days.


I’m definitely going to be making these again, although next time I’m going to fill them with crab!!!

*Not actually French for yum.....that's petit miam!