Homemade nearly-instant peanut brittle

Let me be clear: this recipe is not even close to unprocessed, calling for a huge amount of both sugar and corn syrup. Nevertheless, totally worth making.

We recently read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to the kiddos, which of course led to a search for a description and then a recipe for Turkish delight. In my search, I stumbled on this NYT article on microwaving holiday candy, which included recipes for Turkish delight, pralines, and peanut brittle.

This afternoon, I was craving a sweet-salty snack and remembered the peanut brittle recipe. So easy, so yummy.

I made a half batch: a cup of peanuts, a cup of sugar, a half cup of corn syrup, 1/4 teaspoon salt, a tablespoon of butter, and 3/8 cup water. Microwaved for 5 minutes, stirred, microwaved for 5 minutes, stirred, and microwaved for 1 more minute. Added 1/2 teaspoon each of vanilla and baking soda, stirred it, and spread on a foil-lined baking sheet.

The whole thing made and cooled while doing the dishes. And hubby declared it the best peanut brittle he'd ever tasted. Try it!

Unprocessed October party (and a new project)

The little girl greeted our halfway mark through October with, "I HATE unprocessed month!!"

It's easy to see why when you think about what unprocessed month means to the kiddos. Our dinners are basically unprocessed anyway, so there aren't a lot of changes there, at least not ones they notice. And they don't really notice the lack of unprocessed treats in their lunches (Annie's bunnies or a Simply Fruit fruit stick) because they appeared so rarely.

What unprocessed means to them is: no Oatmeal Squares for snacks (I'm doing pretty well managing the no cereal rule this time!), no going out for pizza or Chinese once a week, no stopping at the local frozen yogurt shop, and no special candy treats when Mommy is around (although the various grandparents have indulged a couple of times, and I didn't say no when they were given tootsie pops at the homecoming parade).

We had a talk about how this month didn't really mean that you couldn't have *any* treats -- it just means that we think a little more about the kinds of foods we choose to put in our bodies -- and really, that's not a bad thing, is it?

For myself, I'm being strict, trying not to "cheat" my own rules at all, but I don't want to micromanage the kids to the point where all they want is processed foods or to where they hate talking about food choices. And I'm not harassing hubby when he chooses to order a pizza when I'm not home or sneak a pop during parent/teacher conferences. Everyone has to make this work for him/herself.

Nevertheless, I decided we needed an unprocessed party today, so I made a cake: I used this recipe from KAF, but subbed in whole wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose. At some point, I'd like to try honey or maple syrup in my cake, but today, I just went with white. It was a party after all. I made a simple vanilla bean ice cream, opting not to use my normal recipe which calls for both cream cheese and corn syrup.

The cake also assisted me with my new baking goal -- at this point, I can comfortably follow a recipe to make just about any bread, cake, pie, cookie, pastry, etc. (Not that I'm an expert or anything, but I don't feel like I have soooo much to learn anymore.) But my cakes and cupcakes never *look* good. So I bought myself a little starter decorating set (I had been using an old one of my dad's with very little success), and have decided to work on decorating. So this cake fit multiple bills.




The little girl declared, "That looks magnificent, Mommy! This is the best unprocessed party ever!"

Slaying the dragon

I'm not sure how it's possible (parents always start birthday posts that way, don't they?), but my baby girl turned five this weekend. My little girl is a warrior princess: she loves everything princessy, pink, and sparkly, but her favorite princesses are Eowyn (Lord of the Rings), Leia (Star Wars), and Merida (Brave). While dressed in fancy princess dresses, she climbs trees, shoots bows and arrows, and runs from Darth Vader.

When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she first said princesses (she loves looking at the Disney princess cakes at the big grocery stores). Then she wanted a castle. And finally, she settled on a red dragon. (Smaug - from the Hobbit - is her favorite and has been her Halloween costume for the past two years.)

There are many pictures of dragon cakes out there, and many seem to follow the same basic pattern. I followed this set of instructions. The birthday girl requested "vanilla cake," which I took to mean yellow. I asked on Twitter for a good, sturdy, yummy yellow cake, and my friend Rebecca recommended Rosie's golden cake (recipe can be found here). I used my 9" rounds, and although the recipe said to bake them for 35 minutes, by 32 minutes, they were already very done. Didn't matter; the cake was moist and delicious. And (most importantly for me!) very sturdy.

I used the same ATK 7-minute frosting that I used for the little guy. It makes a ton and the kids love the marshmallowy flavor. Despite a lot of red gel food coloring, the frosting never got darker than a deep pink. It's okay; the little girl loves pink, and she easily adjusted her expectations.

The girl and her daddy were in charge of decorating design. She picked the colors for all of the pieces, and she helped Daddy design the flames and wings. Given our recent unprocessed journey, I was quite distressed to spend so much time in the snack aisle looking for decorations: luckily, I didn't have to buy too much. I found a multi-colored fruit slice pack, which I used for the claws, eyes, and eye brows. The chocolate-covered graham cookies were perfect for the spikes. And I found a multi-pack of fruit roll-ups and fruit-by-the-foot, which became the wings and flames. We already had chocolate chips (eye balls) and kisses (nostrils).

The cake was a huge hit; it was definitely my biggest cake-decorating success. The guests all loved the dragon, and the kids had fun requesting body parts, starting with the birthday girl, who wanted the head. And I'm happy to have a new no-fail cake-building yellow cake to add to my chocolate cake and frosting. Happy birthday, sweet girl!

A journey to whole wheat

When I first started baking, I followed every recipe exactly...most breads and all cookies/muffins/etc relying exclusively on unbleached all-purpose flour. Some of my bread recipes during my various challenges called for other types: whole wheat, rye, pumpernickel, corn. My cabinets filled with different types of flour, but it was still the all-purpose that we purchased in twenty pound sacks and cycled through at unbelievable speed.

Eventually I heard enough/read enough to realize the benefits of whole grain and, following many recommendations, I started subbing in whole wheat - and then white whole wheat - for a quarter of my all-purpose flour. Gradually I started adding more and more, until finally, with this unprocessed challenge, I wondered, "What would happen if I used all white whole wheat...would anyone even notice?" The simple answer is: No.



Burger buns: I used KAF's best beautiful buns, but subbed in 400 g white whole wheat and 20 g vital wheat gluten. Made twice - gorgeous, fluffy, buttery buns both times.



Crackers: I used this buttermilk whole grain cracker recipe, subbing in a combination of white whole wheat and ground flax seeds. Yum!



Muffins: I've been subbing in increasing amounts of white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose in our muffins: garden harvest, banana chocolate chip. Scones, too, starting with Smitten Kitchen whole wheat berry scones. Sometimes I put in a scoopful of all-purpose, but the majority is always white whole wheat. Everyone gobbles them up just as quickly as before.



Pizza crust: I tried my first 100% whole wheat pizza crust this past week, and it was amazingly delicious. I used this recipe from KAF, omitting the sunflower seeds.



Spaghetti noodles: I've already written about these; we love them!



Tortillas: My biggest unprocessed/whole wheat success story may be these tortillas. We've had them with fajitas three times in the past two weeks, and they are so good. The kids aren't big fans, but they've tried them every time, in the hopes that eventually the taste will become more acceptable. Hubby and I love them, though, and I am getting so much better at making them. Last time, it took me only 20 minutes to roll and cook the whole batch!



Cookies: While this unprocessed challenge has helped us cut down on sweets a lot, every once in a while you need a little something, and I was intrigued by these 100% whole wheat chocolate chip cookies from KAF. It's true that they have a fair amount of processed sugars, but we tried them anyway. The little girl and I had fun baking them together this afternoon. We made tiny teaspoon-sized cookies, which baked perfectly in eight minutes, and hit the spot as a little after-dinner treat!

Fudge success!

One of our most-anticipated treats at Christmas time is my mother-in-law's creamy and delicious chocolate fudge.

While I experiment in the kitchen all of the time, fudge is not something I've ever tried. Paging through their new Star Wars cookbook (yes, they have two Star Wars cookbooks), the kiddos found a recipe for May the Fudge Be With You, and insisted we try it. In the recipe, it talks about stirring the fudge until it goes from glossy to dull, but I had no idea what that meant or how long it would take. I stirred it for a minute or two, and then poured it into the pan.

Now that I know better, it is not a surprise that the fudge never set, and while tasty, it had a grainy texture.

A short time later, Joanna mentioned Celia's tutorial on fudge, and I decided to try it. Celia actually has two tutorials; I studied them both, but tried the chocolate recipe.

With Celia's detailed, helpful instructions and pictures, it became very clear why my first attempt didn't turn out, and I finally realized what it means for fudge to "snap" and turn from glossy to dull. Clearly I didn't mix for nearly long enough. And clearly I was not patient enough.

Happily, it worked! Thanks, Celia. :) I can now make a delicious and creamy fudge, and I can't wait to try other flavors.

Dorie's black and white chocolate birthday cake

It was recently my 37th birthday! I think I've posted before about the fact that, being the cake baker in the family, I frequently passed my birthday without birthday cake. A few years ago, I finally complained to my hubby, and he started buying me an ice cream cake, one of my favorite treats.
Last year, I decided I wanted to make my own birthday treat, and I made cupcakes with my girl. This year, I decided I wanted to make myself a fancy cake. I paged through my cookbooks, finally settling on Dorie's black and white chocolate cake, a yellow buttermilk cake filled with dark chocolate cream and frosted with white chocolate whipped cream.

I made a half recipe, using my two 6" round pans. After reading some commentary about the recipe, I decided to make 3/4 of the whipped cream recipe to be sure I'd have enough to frost the entire cake. The cake was a bit of a process, but I baked the cake and made the chocolate cream a day early, so it wasn't too overwhelming. I was also careful to take advantage of our deep freeze, freezing the cake layers before frosting and freezing it after the crumb coat. It worked beautifully, and was a delicious and fancy way to celebrate my birthday with my favorite people. :)

The gift of years

When I started this blog a little over three years ago, I was an enthusiastic baker (and cook), but not a very experienced one. I wanted to broaden my horizons, but was nervous to try new recipes, reluctant to stray from recipes as written, and quick to panic when anything didn't go as planned. I eagerly joined challenges (the BBA followed by the Modern Bakers and the Mellow Bakers), hoping to learn more.



This Christmas, I really felt the difference the past few years have made. For one thing, I made everything - Christmas Eve dinner (chicken wild rice soup in bread bowls, salad with poppyseed dressing, doughnuts), Christmas morning breakfast (BBA cinnamon rolls), and Christmas dinner (glazed ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, green bean casserole, sugared cranberries, rustic apple pie, and vanilla bean ice cream) completely from scratch, and without asking our guests to bring anything.



Recipes that just a couple of years ago gave me fits - Maida's big apple pie, which I swore I would never make again - came together without a hitch.

Mishaps were easily dealt with: when the roll dough I was working with (a new recipe that I'd altered slightly - still not sure what went wrong) just would not behave normally, even after an hour of doctoring/waiting, I tossed it and was still able to have fresh rolls on the table at 6:00.



I was able to add two new recipes: these sugared cranberries which looked beautiful and were a good way to use up part of a leftover bag of berries, and this from-scratch green bean casserole which I absolutely loved (but I'm glad I didn't try it for Thanksgiving because I don't think it would've gone over well with the traditionalists).

When I realized in the midst of getting ready to put the ham in the oven that I'd forgotten to buy apple cider, I confidently subbed in chicken broth, and wasn't upset when it meant that the final product wasn't quite as good as last year's.

I'm so happy that even though everything in my kitchen doesn't turn out perfectly every time, I now have the experience and confidence not to panic, or get frustrated and give up, or even worse, let it ruin the celebration. Because a happy, healthy family, gathered together around the table, laughing and eating, is of course what the holidays are really about.

Mint chocolate brownie cookies (Virtual cookie exchange)

Winter appeared with a bang last weekend, dumping about 14 inches of snow on us by bedtime on Sunday. Great fun for the kids; not so fun for us, especially living in the frozen tundra where they don't cancel school for a measly foot of snow.
School may not have been canceled, but the weather took its toll on the roads. It took my husband 90 minutes to travel home from work, a drive that usually takes 30. As for me, I was standing on the corner, waiting for my kindergartener's bus, in 19 degree weather, with a little girl who suddenly had to go potty. We stood freezing and waiting and worrying (and her, after a while, crying and dripping wet) for 45 minutes.
By the time we got home with our tired boy in tow, Mama needed a glass of wine. Or a brownie. Or a massage. Or all of the above, times 10.
I'm not actually a drinker, so instead I started browsing for a quick chocolate pick-me-up treat. I stumbled on these brownie cookies from KAF, and they looked like just the thing. The little girl washed up, and we got to work.

I had picked up some Andes mint chips the other day, and since chocolate and mint is one of the best combinations ever, I decided to doctor the recipe just a tad.
I'm not sure I'd describe these as brownies, but they definitely aren't like a regular cookie, either. They've got the most marvelous fudgy texture with a crackly top, and the family and I found them completely irresistible.
My friend Di is hosting her annual virtual cookie exchange today, and I'm happy to bring these along to the party. They come together quickly, and will improve your mood, whatever Mother Nature throws at you.

Mint chocolate brownie cookies
barely adapted from King Arthur Flour
8 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used a quality 70% 4 oz bar and 4 oz of semisweet chocolate chips)
1 1/2 oz unsalted butter
7 1/4 oz sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp espresso powder
1 tsp vanilla
4 1/4 oz all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 oz mint chips
3 oz chocolate chips
1. Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave in 30 second increments, stirring after each, until the butter is melted and the chocolate is almost melted. Stir until the chocolate melts completely.
2. Beat the eggs and sugar in a mixer until combined. Add the butter/chocolate and beat until thoroughly mixed.
3. Use a spatula to gently mix in the rest of the ingredients.
4. Put the batter in the fridge for 30 minutes. (I actually left some in for a couple of days so we could bake a tray whenever we wanted.)
5. Preheat the oven to 325.
6. Drop the cookies in tablespoon-sized balls onto a pan covered with parchment or a baking mat. Bake for about 13 minutes, until the tops have some cracks or look set. Cool on the pan for 5 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack (or your mouth).

Wordless Wednesday: Everyone gets what they like best

Individual berry tart, with Dorie's pastry cream and NM's sweet tart dough, glaze made from strawberry-thyme jam; individual jelly jar parfaits with pastry cream, whipped cream, Dorie's cocoa crumbs, and varied berries depending on preference (inspired by Di)

Waffle cones, take 2

Tonight I tried the waffle cone recipe from David Leibovitz's Perfect Scoop. Again I was surprised by how quick and easy the process was. DL's cones were much thicker than Jeni's and much less fragile. They also needed to cook longer, almost twice as long (1:30 as opposed to :45; Jeni's burned at a minute). I'm glad to know I can achieve a thicker cone, even with the pizzelle iron. Hubby said he thought he preferred the taste of these; I actually preferred the taste of Jeni's, but liked the sturdiness of these.

We enjoyed them with Jeni's darkest chocolate ice cream, with mini chips and cookie dough mixed in (inspiration thanks to Di). Summer dessert perfection.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream

Our final category for ice cream week is original recipe. I have to admit that I was not nearly as creative as Phyl (Guiness stout ice cream), or Margaret (tea and biscuit ice cream), or Rebecca (baklava ice cream), but this is one of our favorite ice cream recipes for my very favorite ice cream flavor: mint chocolate chip.

I start with Jeni's vanilla bean ice cream (can you sense a theme here?):
500 g 2% milk
13 g cornstarch
42 g softened cream cheese
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
312 g heavy cream
130 g sugar
22 g corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp peppermint extract
1/2 c mini chocolate chips

I follow Jeni's basic technique (see here), but leave out the vanilla bean and stir the extracts into the base at the end. After an overnight rest in the fridge, I churn it in my ice cream maker, adding the chocolate chips during the final two minutes of churning.

Next to rich lemon curd frozen yogurt (my favorite) and Jeni's vanilla bean with chocolate chip cookie dough (hubby's favorite), this is probably the most popular flavor at our house. Thanks to Phyl for an incredibly delicious and fun ice cream week! :-)

Ice cream week cones

Today's theme for Phyl's ice cream week is sorbet or other non-dairy frozen treats. I didn't make sorbet. But I didn't want to be left out. So I'm posting a non-dairy treat FOR frozen treats. :-)
A year ago, my friend Di posted about getting her own waffle cone maker and I became obsessed. Which is funny, because I have never liked cones; I always order my ice cream in a cup. But suddenly, waffle cones sounded soooo good and I began ordering them whenever we went out.
Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and use some of my remaining birthday money to buy a waffle cone maker. Well, after a lot of soul-searching ;-) and researching, I actually bought a pizzelle maker to use for waffle cones. The waffle cone makers come in 7-inch, which seemed huge for the kids, or 3-inch, which sounded too tiny to be worth it. Pizzelles are 5-inches, which seemed just about perfect. Plus my mother-in-law makes pizzelles each Christmas and I love her recipe (hint hint), so this way, I can make my own and I'm not spending money on a single-use appliance. Ta da!
I tried Jeni's recipe (Di posted it here). It was so much fun. I made cones and little bowls, and not only did we love them with ice cream, but they were amazing by themselves as cookies. I ate an embarrassing number by myself.
Check out Phyl, Rebecca, Margaret, and Di's actual sorbet/non-dairy frozen treat posts!

Triple citrus rich frozen yogurt

Today's ice cream week theme is frozen yogurt, and it's no surprise (to me anyway) that I did a new riff on an old familiar recipe.
The one recipe that I look up on my own blog over and over again is this one for rich lemon curd frozen yogurt. It uses the instant lemon curd from KAF in the lemon froyo recipe from Jeni's book, and there is just something about the bright lemon flavor and the incredible creamy texture that just captures me.... I am a chocoholic and normally won't even consider a non-chocolate dessert, but this is the one flavor of ice cream that I can't stay away from, continually sneaking into the freezer to have just one more small scoopful.
Before we went out West, I made a version in which I subbed in orange for the lemon. It was delicious and we ate it before I got any pictures, but it was definitely missing a little something.
Today, I was thinking about both the lemon and the orange froyo, and when I opened my fruit drawer, I ended up pulling out the lime, too. How about a three-citrus frozen yogurt?
Thinking about my discussions with Di yesterday about the unsatisfying non-fruitiness of many fruit ice creams, I decided to up the citrus flavor even more. I made 1 1/2 times my usual amount of curd, and used juice and zest from the three fruits. With the exception of a few spoonfuls "just to see how it tastes," I used it all in the yogurt. My ingredients were:
40 g egg
90 g sugar
45 g melted unsalted butter
60 g fresh orange juice (from one orange)
30 g fresh lemon juice (from one small lemon)
zest from a lime, a lemon, and an orange (a healthy pinch of each)

Then I followed my normal process for making the curd and the froyo, again using a pinch of all three citrus zests in the ice cream base.
I think I love this version as much as the original lemon. Our good friends are visiting from out East. Their comments were, "That's frozen yogurt?!?" and, "It tastes like really good lemon cheesecake." My hubby's addition: "And it will prevent scurvy!" ;-)

Cream puffs!

When King Arther Flour posted about cream puffs and éclairs a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't believe how easy the recipe seemed. And I just knew I had to try it.

So one night when dinner wasn't that exciting, I decided to make a fun dessert. And just as promised, the recipe for the choux paste was incredibly easy. I heated the water, butter, and salt in a saucepan, then added the flour, and let it all cool. Then I mixed in the eggs. That's it. Just as easy as promised.

I decided to experiment with a couple of different sizes, making both 1/4 cup large puffs and cookie-scoop mini puffs. The large puffs baked exactly as stated in the recipe; for the minis, I baked them for about 10 minutes at 425º and then another 15 minutes at 350º. For the large puffs, I filled them with whipped cream and covered them with chocolate sauce. For the minis, I made a small batch of pastry cream and used a piping bag to fill them.

This recipe was so easy, and it created such a decadent and delicious dessert!

Lemon loaf cake (TWD: BwJ)

Our second April recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie is a lemon loaf cake. This is a pound cake that takes all of five minutes and one bowl to make.

It's made by whisking eggs with sugar (gently), and then lemon zest, and then sifting flour and baking powder, whisking in some heavy cream, and folding in some melted butter. That's it; it took a million times longer to bring the ingredients to room temperature than it did to make the cake.

I used three mini loaf pans (5x2) instead of a 9x5 pan; the loaves baked for 35 minutes. We enjoyed one of the mini cakes with dinner; it was a huge hit. The little guy said, "I would like another piece of that delicious lemon cake!" The hubby and I each took a mini loaf to school to celebrate the start of fourth quarter. It must be spring! :)

Check out the other TWDers' lemon cakes here and, if you'd like the recipe, grab a copy of Baking with Julia or check out this week's hosts: Truc of Treats and Michelle of The Beauty of Life.

Showers of food

Photo credit: Asha Thao

One of my good friends from work is having a baby. At my old school, this meant all of the ladies in the school got together in the school library for a little informal baby shower. But apparently high schools are too big for that kind of thing, so showers are done by department...which kind of left me in charge. This is not a good thing, as showers are not my forté. I have been lucky enough to avoid having to host a shower up until this point; my strategy is usually to delay volunteering until someone else offers. :) I barely tolerated my own showers. I am not good at the formal thing, nor the cutsie thing, nor the everything-matching thing. I don't enjoy the games or the piles of presents. I don't think of the little details, like having everyone write out a little piece of advice for the mom-to-be.

Luckily another friend in the department offered to co-host, and she is an excellent party hostess. She has a beautiful house, complete with matching serving dishes, :) and is really good at all of those things I mentioned above. But she doesn't like to bake. She took care of the cutsie, I handled the food...it was a match made in heaven. :)

Yesterday afternoon, twenty past and present teachers gathered to gossip, eat, tell baby stories, and wish our friend well.

Photo credit: Asha Thao

The mom-to-be requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I tried Dorie's cocoa and buttermilk birthday cake with a chocolate ganache frosting from the best chocolate cake ever. The cake didn't seem quite done at the suggested time, but I should've pulled it out of the oven anyway; it was a little overdone, dry and crumbly. The one thing on my list that I didn't have time for was a Swiss meringue buttercream to decorate. Oh well, the flavor was still good and the cake was a hit...practicing my decorating skills will have to wait.

I also made lemon bars from my America's Test Kitchen Family cookbook and NM's truffle brownies. The lemon bars were extremely lemony (6 lemons' worth of zest and juice), and they were quite tasty. I was disappointed with their stamina, though: they didn't hold up well to being transported and moved around. NM's brownies were amazing, as always.

One of my favorite new recipes that I tried were these soft frosted sugar cookies from Tracey's site that I have been drooling over for months. They were even better than the ones from the store, which are a guilty pleasure of mine. And they were so cute!

My other favorite new recipe is these turkey and spinach rolls, which have been on my to-try list ever since Andrea posted them nearly two years ago. I can't believe I waited so long to try them. They were so easy, and soooo delicious. And such a good base for so many other cute sandwich creations. I used the soft dough from ABED that I always use for buns, with half white whole wheat flour. I rolled it out into a giant rectangle as though I were making cinnamon buns, and then spread it with Boursin cheese, spinach leaves, and a couple different kinds of turkey. Then I rolled them up and sliced them, cinnamon bun style, put them on a baking sheet covered with parchment and stuck them in the fridge overnight. The day of the party, I just had to take them out and let them come to room temperature and then bake them for 25 minutes. Everyone who tried them loved them, and people commented on how much easier they were to eat than other party sandwiches. This is definitely a repeat recipe.

Wordless Wednesday: Looks aren't everything

It may not look as good, but the leftovers of this are just as delicious!

The new best ever: individual ice cream cakes!

February and March are birthday-ful around here. All of the grandmas (my mom, my mother-in-law, and my stepmom) have birthdays within a few weeks of each other, and this year, we had a birthday dinner for one grandma on Saturday night and Nana's birthday brunch on Sunday morning. All of the grandmas love cheesecake and my stepmom, in particular, has a new fascination with limoncello. So when Natashya posted this recipe for limoncello cheesecake squares a couple of months ago, this year's birthday treat was a no-brainer; and since we were celebrating two birthdays in one weekend, I was able to make one pan of treats for both.

too much yellow!

But I knew that, while this was a perfect grandma birthday treat, it would not be appealing or appropriate for the little ones, so I set out to find a fun and delicious birthday party treat for them. When my little guy turned five a few weeks ago, we got a bakery cake for the first time ever (eek! provided by the place where we had his party). But I wanted to make a little something for home, too. I had the idea of an ice cream cake, so I baked up a quarter-version of Dorie's perfect birthday cake in a mini-loaf pan, made a batch of lemon frozen yogurt, and layered the two together. And then I realized that the lemon curd I'd used in the frozen yogurt was way past it's prime, and I ended up having to throw it all away. It was very depressing. And I also realized that an ice cream cake should use a cake and ice cream with contrasting colors.

And then I re-stumbled upon this post from my friend Di for individual ice cream cakes, and I was sold.

For my version, I made a batch of peppermint ice cream. I used Jeni's vanilla ice cream recipe, but skipped the vanilla bean, and stirred in a teaspoon each of vanilla extract and peppermint extract at the end. After churning, I spread the ice cream on a half-sheet pan covered in parchment paper and set it in the deep freeze.

Then I made (as recommended by Di), Dorie's devil's food cake recipe from BFMYTY. I made a half-recipe, and somehow misread Di's instructions: she used a 9x13 pan, but I mistakenly thought she'd used a half-sheet pan. I thought the batter looked too thin when I spread it out, but I baked it anyway (it took about 15 minutes). This turned out to be a really happy mistake! It made a nice, thin cookie/cake layer that looked just like a real ice cream sandwich, and I thought the cake was in perfect proportion to the ice cream. Once the cake was cool in its pan, I added it to the deep freeze.

When it was time for assembly, I used a 2" biscuit cutter dipped in a bowl of hot water to cut out the cake circles and the ice cream circles. Then I used my mini heart cutter to make baby ice cream sandwiches out of the leftover pieces for the family to sample (since by that point, they were all sitting at the counter watching me and saying, "When can we eat these?!"). I stuck the assembled sandwiches back into the deep freeze.

Finally, I made a 1/2 batch of Jeni's chocolate bombe shell, and used that to coat the cold sandwiches. I scattered some sprinkles on top, and once more into the deep freeze until the party.

There were a lot of little steps, and this recipe definitely takes some serious planning to put together, but nothing was too difficult and the results were sooooo worth it! These little sandwiches were a huge hit with the kids and adults alike: they were so delicious and so fun to eat. They definitely go into my top five desserts I've ever made. I foresee many different variations in our future, although the peppermint-chocolate combination will be repeated as well!

(ignore the plate: we were having a use-up-all-leftover-paper-plates party!) ;)