Cranberry Ice Cream

Millions of people in the US are about to lose food benefits. If you are considering buying groceries to drop off at your local food bank, think about donating money directly to them instead. Food banks often buy food at bulk rates, so your money will feed more people than if you did the shopping yourself. And of course, the people in charge of food banks have a firsthand view of what foods are needed. 

Right, on with the cranberries...

Autumn is here, even if the weather doesn't think so yet. Nevertheless, it is now socially acceptable (ish) to buy large quantities of cranberry sauce.

Cranberry Ice Cream 1 can jellied cranberry sauce 1 cup heavy cream Put the cranberry sauce in a large mixing bowl that will fit in your freezer. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth. In a separate bowl, whip the cream (no need to rinse the cranberry sauce off the mixer beaters). Fold the cream into the cranberry sauce. Place in the freezer. Freeze the beaters alongside it. When almost frozen solid, beat again with the mixer. It will deflate at first, but then re-whip. (This second beating makes it creamier.) Transfer to your storage container of choice and freeze until firm. Adapted from All Electric-Mix Recipes Prepared Specially for your Dormeyer Mixer, 1946

When I bought the fresh produce for this recipe, I couldn't help noticing the country of origin on those little stickers. None of the fruits came from within US borders. Unless a certain special someone stops playing at tariffs like they're fantasy football, a lot of people will end up making severe cuts to the impending holiday season menu.

After our initial prep work, we now have fruit juice and a big red can! 

Incidentally, a lot of people think of canned cranberry sauce as more of a centerpiece than something you eat. Many Thanksgiving tables are incomplete without the can-shaped cranberry-- even if no one eats it. From what I gather, it is a charming callback to the the "better living through chemistry" era of cooking. But I like to actually eat the stuff, so I was excited to find a new way to use it.

After beating the jelly as smooth as it would get, I tasted some and immediately regretted adding the citrus. Maybe it would improve with freezing, but at this point it was bitter and sour. Then the fruit juice separated out while I whipped the cream. It's never a good sign when your ingredients form puddles.

Well, just a few minutes after I started the mixer, our sherbet was ready to freeze! It certainly looks like I put nearly no effort in, doesn't it?

Our half-frozen sherbet deflated as soon as I had at it with the mixer. I was going to throw it out, but I figured there was nothing wrong with beating longer to see what happened. After all, you can't ruin what's already ruined. To my surprise, our sherbet gradually reinflated. 

After I tasted this, I only finished the recipe to see if the method worked. Our sherbet was powdery. It wasn't agreeably grainy like water ice or a sorbet, but oddly dry. Maybe the citrus curdled the cream? Either way, this was a sad waste of canned cranberry sauce.

I threw everything out. However, this recipe had potential, so I made it again without any fruit juice. Things looked promising as soon as I turned on the mixer. The cranberry sauce turned into this lovely, smooth glop instead of chunklets in a watery mess.

Because we didn't have to fuss with a lemon squeezer, we had this in the freezer in minutes. Just to see if it really needs to be beaten twice, I spooned some into a little bowl to freeze alongside it. The mixture tasted delicious, but you can see that it had the same sort of little curds that ruined the first batch. It didn't have the same weird texture, so I was optimistic.

After freezing it once, the ice cream wasn't bad. But it was a lot creamier after following the directions and beating it twice. True, it wasn't as nice as if I had used an actual ice cream machine (I don't think freezer ice creams ever are). But if you don't want to mess with crushed ice and rock salt, this is pretty good. I didn't throw any of it away, nor am I chucking out the recipe.

This has to be one of the few times when crossing out most of the ingredients actually made something better. Usually those "two-ingredient [whatever]" recipes are terrible, but this was so good I made it again.

Did you know bourbon goes great with chocolate?

hastily-slapped on message: 

Millions of people in the US are about to lose food benefits. If you are considering buying groceries to drop off at your local food bank, think about donating money directly to them instead. Food banks often buy food at bulk rates, so your money will feed more people than if you did the shopping yourself. And of course, the people in charge of food banks have a firsthand view of what foods are needed. 

Right, on with the alcohol...

Before we let some of my more pyromaniacal friends have the rest of the whiskey, I wanted to try something I read online. Apparently chocolate and bourbon go really well together. I've seen a few people claim that a judicious splash of whiskey can really bring out the flavor of chocolate. And so, I spiked my next batch of brownies.

We added more bourbon than necessary because, well, what else was I going to do with it?

I was kind of surprised this worked, but it did. If you add a generous splash of the bourbon (like, a smidge more than if you were using vanilla), the slight liquor burning helps the taste of the chocolate linger just a bit longer. The batter tasted so good that I only baked it because I had already heated the oven.

This is a reminder that Betty Feezor's brownies are delicious. Even the sight of the batter in the pan makes me swoon.

Most of the whiskey baked right out of the brownies, which made the kitchen smell interesting but left the brownies themselves tasting like I didn't do anything different. But since these were Betty Feezor's brownies, they were delicious anyway. I put a big spoonful of the apricot whip on them. It might look like I'm serving brownies with scrambled eggs on top, but these were really good.

So yes, if you add a lightly overflowing spoonful of bourbon to chocolate, it helps the flavor really pop. But it's kind of a waste of liquor if you try to bake it afterward. However, for chocolate recipes that don't go into the oven, this is really good.