Key Lime Ice Cream Sandwiches

I meant to make this recipe LAST summer. Good thing recipes keep. 

 

This past weekend was another fun-filled summer weekend in NYC!

 

Fri I went to a club. (Yes. ME. At a club! It was actually more fun than I remembered from my early 20s...)

 

Sat morning I enjoyed sun bathing on the roof of my apt.

Then I made these messy ice cream sandwiches and brought them to Hoboken, NJ where my friends made a lovely dinner and we ended up competing in a potato sack race! (Pardon the blurry photo.)

Sunday morning I woke up early with my best running friend and we headed to Governors Island for a 10K. It was hot but we rocked it!

 

Then I went to South Street Seaport area for brunch and walked around an outdoor market with a friend from TX.

Then I went to Astoria and played basketball with my running group.

Afterwards some of the players had a nice dinner al fresco and we got to see the supermoon.

 

It was a lovely (albeit super busy) weekend with a lovely dessert - the way I like my weekends! 

Did I mention that these were quite messy?

Yeah, they started melting very quickly. Next time I will plan to freeze the ice cream in a glass pan so I can cut out the correct shape and easily lift it with a spatula onto the graham crackers. I highly suggest you do this if you make the recipe because then you won't be cursing yourself for having frozen too much in a big container (like I did.)

 

The ice cream was very creamy and tasted just like key lime pie. The zest from the limes mixed with the sugary tartness of the key lime juice mixed perfectly with the creaminess of the condensed milk and whipping cream.

Key Lime Ice Cream Sandwiches (from Cookies & Cups - check out this post for great step by step photos)

Ingredients

3 cups heavy whipping cream (Erika's Extras: I used organic)

1/2 cup sugar

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk (Erika's Extras: I used organic)

3/4 cup Key Lime juice (Erika's Extras: I used organic)

1 Tbsp Lime zest (Erika's Extras: I used organic)

approx 12 full graham crackers, broken in half to create 12 sandwiches

 

Instructions

In stand mixer with whisk attachment whip 2 cups heavy cream and sugar until stiff peaks form, approx 2 minutes.

Turn speed to low and pour in sweetened condensed milk. Turn speed up to medium high and beat 1 minute.

Finally add lime juice, remaining cup of cream and and zest and beat approx 1 more minute on medium-high.

Pour mixture into freezer-safe container and freeze for 5-6 hours until almost frozen. (Erika's Extras: I would pour into glass pans for easy slicing later.)

Once frozen, spread about 1/4 cup mixture on top of 1 graham cracker at a time, topping with the other half of the cracker. (Erika's Extras: This is where cutting them out of a glass pan would come in handy.) Wrap in cling wrap and put back in freezer. Repeat process until all sandwiches are made.

Freeze 2 hours more, or overnight.

Serve frozen

Bake well and prosper.

Black Cherry Ice Cream Scones

Fall is officially here (now that it's warm and super humid again in NYC...) I don't know about y'all, but I still had a lot of ice cream in my freezer left from summer. While I am sure I could have finished it in its usual form, I happened to have stumbled upon an easy recipe to make scones from ice cream. Yes, scones!

I tried this recipe last week but didn't get self rising flour. Listen to me: You MUST use self rising flour for this recipe. (Normal flour yields a weird mushy cookie thingy that is NOT a scone. Nor a cookie. It's just wrong.)

So, after buying self rising flour, I decided to use Turkey Hill's Black Cherry Ice Cream.

This ice cream is delicious straight from the container, but man, oh man... Black Cherry Scones are GREAT!

Now, go grab some self rising flour and an ice cream you'd like in a scone flavor and bake away!

Black Cherry Scones (adapted from Framed Cooks)

1 pint vanilla ice cream

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Extra flour for when you roll out the scones

1. Let ice cream soften for about 15 minutes, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Add ice cream and flour to mixer. Start mixing and then add in the vanilla. Mix until combined into a dough that sticks together.

3. Generously flour rolling surface and place dough on flour. Knead it just a little until dough comes together, adding additional flour as needed until you have a dough that is more floury than wet. (Erika's Extras: It will be hard to feel the dough because your fingers will be so cold!)

4. Roll the dough into a long thin tube shape with your hands.It should be about 1 inch wide and 12 inches long.

5. Cut dough into 1 inch segments and place on baking sheet about 2 inches apart.

6. Bake until just turning golden brown, about 20-25 minutes. Cool on rack.

Bake well and prosper!

My milkshake brings...happiness

Do not let some cooler weather trick you in to thinking that summer is over. There's still hot weather ahead and plenty of frozen drinks to keep enjoying. Speaking of which...

If you want an easy recipe to make as a nice alcoholic/dessert beverage, try a Brandy Alexander. It requires some Brandy:

Some Creme de Cacao:

And some ice cream (I went with Häagen-Dazs this time around):

Put it in a blender...

And voila! A wonderful milkshake that everyone (over the age of 21) enjoys!

Brandy Alexander (from my Mom's Best Recipes Cookbook - I think it's the only recipe of an alcoholic beverage in her book and all my friends are shocked that this goodness is from my saintly mother. Ha!)

1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream

1/4 C creme de cacao

1/4 C brandy

Mix as malts in blender.

For 2 servings:

2 C vanilla ice cream

1 T creme de cacao

1 T brandy

(Erika's Extras: Feel free to add chocolate syrup or a cherry on top.)

Bake well and prosper!

Update: I'm submitting this entry to the Quickies: Morning Noon & Night Cocktail Challenge hosted by Quickies on the Dinner Table and Lazaro Cooks! The contest is for a delicious sounding and sexy looking cocktail. Well, I'm not sure if this is as sexy as some of the entries are sure to be, but goodness, it's a crowd pleaser known to loosen guests up. And what's better than getting this recipe from my MOTHER? Ha! (I guess we could change the name to Brandy Alexandra to make it sound more coquettish...)

This is the prize that the winner gets - an awesome cookbook!

My first OWN recipe!

This past Sunday, Robin and Mike hosted my boyfriend and me to their lovely NYC apartment for dinner. I LOVE their apartment. I'm such a big fan of good windows in apartments and their apartment has great tall ones that curve in at the top so you can peak up at the sky. Check out the windows in the living room:

After we had devoured the yummy tacos Robin put together, it was my turn to work some magic in the kitchen. I had been itching to try (yes, I grew up in TX) my hand at grilled peaches and thought I had read enough recipes to figure it out. So I brought over cinnamon and sugar, peaches, and vanilla ice cream.

Once there, I realized I needed BROWN sugar, not cinnamon and sugar, and Robin didn't have any. (Clearly she's more of a cook.) Oh well. This was truly going to be MY recipe now.

I grabbed a pan and threw in some butter. Once it was on its own melting way, I tossed in some cinnamon and sugar. I chopped up half a peach and threw the pieces in the pan. I stirred them a little and flipped them some.

They were probably in the pan for about 5 minutes and they looked soooo good!

I grabbed some of Robin's bowls, tossed in some scoops of ice cream, and took a quick picture before taking the dessert to the table.

I WAS nervous about it. I've always followed recipes...with the occasional dash of my own thoughts thrown in. But this dessert had no measurements or instructions. It was all up to me.....

And it was a success!!!! Everyone loved it. It reminded me of peach cobbler without the crust. Now, I realize that there are probably tons of these recipes out there, but hey! I used my noggin and not google to figure something out! Woohoo!

Erika's Peach Pieces

1 & 1/2 tablespoons of butter

1 tablespoon of cinnamon and sugar

1/2 a peach

Start melting butter in a pan. Cut up half a peach into nice chunks. Add cinnamon and sugar to the melting butter. Stir and then add the peach pieces. Make sure to keep the burner at a level where the butter isn't bubbling a lot. Burnt butter is sad butter. After 5 minutes, pour peaches and sauce onto ice cream (or whatever else you see fit.)

Bake well and prosper!

Oreo Ice Cream

Has anyone noticed it's summer? I have (and so has my bank account.) Summer in the city is like a 3 month long party. It never stops. There's always something to do and thank goodness this past weekend it wasn't blazing hot. (No AC underground on subway platforms when it's 95 and humid = Erika melts.)

So, just in time for non melting but still hot weather, here's an easy recipe for making some beefed up Oreo ice cream. Let me know what YOU'RE doing to keep cool this summer.

Oreo Ice Cream from Mom's Best Recipes Cookbook

1 large pkg Oreo cookies, crushed (19-20 oz)

1 large Cool Whip (12 oz)

1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream, softened

Mix all together. Pour into 2 9x13 pans. Freeze with foil on top.

Erika's Extras: Have pans already chilled in freezer before pouring ice cream into them. Also, if you are a nutty person and love nuts, feel free to add 1 1/3 C nuts to the mix before freezing.

Erika's Extra: If you are a maverick at eating this ice cream, you already know that the correct way to eat it is by making designs in the ice cream first and THEN eating.

Bake well and prosper!

Simple & Sweet

OK people. It's beautiful outside and all I want to do is sunbathe...while eating ice cream.

So I just did. I made an easy and yummy topping to go on the vanilla ice cream that my friend and I enjoyed while sitting by the Joan of Arc statue in Riverside park.

You just need these three items:Mix equal amounts of corn syrup, chocolate syrup, and chunky peanut butter in a saucepan over heat until completely mixed. (Microwave can be used as well.)
Pour desired amount over ice cream and enjoy!

See? Simple & sweet! :)
Bake well and prosper!