Ice Cream Cupcakes

I was asked to make the Ice Cream cupcakes featured on Linda Kaye's  Bake a Cake Party Book  for her TV shoot. They are very cute and an adorable idea for a kids birthday party!

The Bake a Cake Party Book features one easy recipe that you can use for all the cake ideas. The cake batter has to be dense enough that it won't make the ice cream cone all soggy. Don't use a batter if it looks too liquidy like glue. It should be a batter that is thick and doesn't pour easily. You can use a cake mix too if you are short on time!

Make sure to beat the ingredients well with a mixer to avoid any lumps. There is nothing worse than biting into a lump of flour!

Prep all your empty ice cream cones (note these have to be flat bottomed cones, not the waffle or sugar cones) and place them on a muffin tin. This holds them in shape without risk of toppling over and baking into each other. If you don't have a muffin tin, use a cake pan but be gentle when moving it into the oven so the cones don't tilt.

You can fill the cones with a pastry bag for a clean rim, or you can use an ice cream scoop or spoon.

You don't want to fill the cones up too much or the batter will overflow. Allow half an inch on top.

When baked, the cupcakes will not all be perfectly smooth, they will be uniquely cracked, which is fine since we want to frost them and that way it gives them a more unique ice cream look! If you are a stickler for perfection and want perfectly round tops, don't fill the cups as much, allow 3/4 of an inch of space, and don't bake as many cupcakes at once. Spread them out more in the muffin tin so they aren't close together, this will alow the heat to reach all of them more evenly.

When the cupcakes have cooled (you can cool them in the fridge or freezer) make your frosting and color it with as many or as few colors as you want!

When your army of frosted ice cream cupcakes is done, you can chose to decorate the top. You can write letters as shown in the Bake a Cake Party Book, or you can add sprinkles, flowers, whatever you wish.

The Norwood Club

So as previously mentioned, I am now the Pastry Chef at the Norwood Club in NYC. It's a private club for artists, and I have the privilege of working with the greatest team anyone could ask for. Full of friendly people and amazing food of course. Earlier this week I decided to try a tasting from the currently updated menu (all of my desserts included of course!)

So here is my adventure and what you would taste if you decide to dine there.

Amuse

Oysters with champagne gelee. I am typically not a fan of oysters but I could eat a dozen of these!

Lobster Salad. I see them being cooked every day and was thrilled to finally sink my teeth into them.

Parsnip soup with lemongrass.

Appetizers

Beet Salad with blue cheese!

Spetzle with bolognese sauce!

Cauliflower.. the best I've ever had!

Cream of mushroom soup... can I jsut say WOW!

Main  

Lobster Risotto with clementines and clementine foam.

Fluke with truffled potatoes and mushrooms. The best dish!

Duck with figs.. Tasty!!

Pork cooked in the most unusual interesting way.. ask the chef!

Desserts

Chocolate- Caramel mousses on hazelnut Financier with frangelico caramel sauce and vanilla oil caramelized hazelnuts.

Flourless chocolate torte with ricotta-fraiche ice cream, raspberries and dehydrated meringue. The entire dish just falls apart in your mouth!

Cinnamon- Vanilla Apple Tart with strawberry sauce, fresh strawberries and lavender wire.

Spiced Pumpkin Mousse with cinnamon ice cream, snapple sauce, cinnamon streusel and pumpkin chips.

Quite a meal isn't it? But tasty and worth it!

Brandied Cherry-Choc-Chip Ice Cream (Healthified!!)

I can't get enough of this Ice Cream, and you'll see why when you try it.

It's delicious and amazing and you'll want to get drunk off it instead of your friday night beers and wines.

This ice cream had a great combination of creamy smoothness with crunchy chocolate and chewy sour cherries.

Ingredients

150g sugar

1 tsp xanthan gum (you can buy this at any health food store or specialty supermarket)

500g non-fat milk

60g honey (or 100g trimoline if you are lucky to have it at home, most people don't)

1/2 scraped vanilla bean

250g non fat greek yogurt *

250g non-fat cream cheese *

112g brandied cherries **

112g Semi sweet chocolate coarsely chopped

*If you don't care about the calories as much, replace the yogurt and cream cheese for 500g of mascarpone cheese (now this is a killer combo.. amazing! But for purposes of healthifying, let's stick to the nonfat yogurt and cream cheese.

** If you can't find brandied cherries (they are really hard to find) get any jarred sour cherries (not the candied cherries you put on a sundae, those are entirely different!) I use Trader Joe's Morello Cherries

When I buy them I rinse them under the water to get rid of that syrup (it's bad for you so resist the urge to drink the juice in the jar) and rinse out the jar. Then I put the clean cherries back in the jar and fill the jar with Kirsh Brandy.

This is very potent alcohol, one wiff can have you gasping. If you are making this for young children don't put kirsh in the cherries since the alcohol will not get cooked off. Use rinsed out cherries instead.

Leave the cherries to soak in the brandy for as long as you want. Then chop up however much you need to put in the ice cream. (Use the rest for black forest cake!)

Preparation:

1. Mix all the ingredients,  except the chocolate and cherries, in a blender and blend for 2 minutes.
2. If the mixture is still cold after blending, you can put in the ice cream machine right away, if not, chill for 30 minutes.
3. When the ice cream has thickened and reached a soft serve consistency, fold in the chocolate and cherries and freeze till set.
   
   Easy as 1-2-3 isn't it? But now let me tell you about the chocolate sauce on top...

Warm Chocolate Sauce

250g non-fat milk

60g sugar

30g butter (or better yet, a butter substitute such as: I can't believe it's not butter, or smart balance)

150g semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Bring milk and sugar to a boil. Stir in butter and chocolate and continue cooking till it boils again. Stir continuously so as not to burn the chocolate. Refrigerate if not using right away and reheat however much you need just before serving.