Vanilla ice cream, caramel sauce, chocolate ganache

This was breakfast. It was supposed to be dessert last night, but I was too stuffed so I delayed gratification.

This method is not hard and fast. There are very broad margins for variation. In the end, it's up to you, what you want, the type of ice-cream you want to end up with. Martha Stewart said she never uses eggs in ice cream because then you simply end up with custard. I say, that's what I want -- custard. So I suppose this is frozen custard, even though the recipe is for French vanilla ice cream. There's nothing particularly French about it that I can see. This recipe uses a lot of egg yolks and fresh vanilla beans, but it doesn't have to.  It's possible to make perfectly good ice cream without any eggs and by using vanilla extract. I'm feeling rather uppity right now, and since I'm troubling to make ice cream, I might as well go all the way. No milk for me, no Siree, I drink that stuff all the time anyway. 

* two sliced and scraped vanilla pods

* 1 pint heavy cream

* 1 pint Half & Half

* 1/2 cup sugar

* 5 egg yolks

* 1/8 teaspoon salt

I used 1/2 cup sugar because 3/4 cup or 1 cup sugar seemed too cloying. I used 5 egg yolks instead of 6 egg yolks because the eggs I have are huge. I tempered the eggs into the hot liquid, although in all honesty I do not see why that is necessary. It seems to me possible to whisk the eggs with the cream and bring all the ingredients together up to temperature. Nobody ever mentions that possibility. I like tempering eggs. It helps me pretend I know what I'm doing. It also seems to me that more time to infuse the vanilla  would lead to a deeper final product.  I did not do that, but next time I probably will. For instance, I think that orange zest or mint or vanilla, any natural flavor agent like that, would be improved by allowing to infuse for longer periods. 

The zest from two oranges that I added to the cream mixture could not be tasted so I added Grand Marnier to compensate. The result is disappointing. Instead of bright happy zing of oranges, it ended up with a flat metallic non-orangish thud.  That does it! This stuff is overrated. For now on, it's going to be long infusions for me. Other than that, I'm well pleased with this ice cream. 

Caramel is melted sugar with butter added along with cream. It's very easy to make but it does take just a bit of technique. The dry sugar can be stirred in a pot until it liquifies then stirring must end. At that point swirling is allowed. Sugar melts at a temperature much hotter than boiling water and for this reason it's dangerous. Don't let any little kids or pets around when you're making caramel, they simply do not appreciate the hazards they invite with their impish games and childish ways. The liquid sugar quickly burns and the taste of burnt sugar is dreadful. Have the butter and cream ready at hand. Adding butter  initiates the cooling of  the liquified sugar.  For 1/2 cup caramel sauce:

1/2 cup cane sugar

3 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup (or so) cream. 

Melt the sugar, stir when it's still granular, swirl when it begins to melt. Lift off the heat to check the steady upward heating and swirl to mix the melted portions with the unmelted portions evenly. Note the mixture darkening, at the point of desired darkness toss in the butter and remove from heat. The progressive heating is suddenly stopped, when the butter is melted, slowly add cream. The mixture bubbles madly and rises in the pot, keep drizzling and whisking until the desired thickness is attained.  Making caramel sauce  is easy, fun, and dramatic. If the first attempt fails, analyze where you went wrong and start over.  

Add a pinch of salt if unsalted butter was used.  

Ganache is even easier. 50% cream / 50% chocolate. Decide how much you want, and heat that amount of cream in the microwave. Thirty seconds should do, it tends to boil up very quickly. Add the same amount by weight of chocolate. You can use any commercial chocolate bar or even chocolate chips. I'm using single-source couverture chocolate because, hey, I'm an obnoxious snooty uppity chocolate snob. 

See what was done here? Real cream, real vanilla, real chocolate, and cane sugar. 

Banana, ice cream, ganache

Ganache

* 1/8 cup Ghiradelli
* 1/8 cup milk or cream

Heat milk in microwave for 30 seconds or until it foams, add chocolate chips and stir. If you use milk then it takes slightly more chocolate chips than 50/50, adjust as necessary.

Chocolate cheesecake

Via Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa, a national treasure of the Food Network fame.

I licked the bowl like a dog. Like a dog with no manners at all. Like a dog with no manners who completely licks finished a bowl of beef gravy. I do this because there was nobody here to ridicule or to stop me. You can see how that central post in the bowl would present a problem for sticking my face all the way in there. That's why I have chocolate drying in my hair and on my eyebrows and cheeks and in my ears. I can't get it all off. Cats are following me around trying to get all up in my face to lick me.  OK, I might have made up this whole paragraph. I used a spoon.

Developed at Ina's shop in the Hamptons, New York, here's the recipe for the cheesecake she called The Money Maker. It wasn't called that openly, of course, it was called that in private between her and her shop's co-owner and always with a mischievous giggle. Publicly the cheesecake was called something like Chocolate Cheesecake or some other name sufficiently innocuous that didn't hint at the hideous profits this cake brought in for the shop. It went for something like $40.00 per cake, or perhaps it was $140.00, I forget, but it was outrageous and the good citizens who stalk the easternmost area of the southern fork shore of Long Island are ever impervious to cost when it comes to the subject of their own catering. A helicopter ride around the area will demonstrate why this is so.

Try this cheesecake sometime when you feel like being extra good to yourself. And by good, I mean bad. You will not be disappointed.

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For the crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (10 crackers)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the filling:
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 tablespoon instant espresso coffee
1 3/4 pounds cream cheese, at room temperature (I didn't bother with room temperature because I wanted to get on with it. I just made sure it turned fluffy. Plus I added hot coffee and warmed chocolate)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon of table salt would be too much by double)
3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature (I used four regular eggs)
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temperature

For the ganache:
1/4 pound semi-sweet chocolate
1/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

To make the crust:

Place the graham cracker crumbs, melted butter and cinnamon in a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until combined. Pour into a 9-inch springform pan. With your hands, press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan. Bake for 12 minutes. Cool to room temperature. Meanwhile, chop the bittersweet chocolate and place it in a heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Add the espresso and stir until just melted. Set aside until cooled to room temperature. (I put couverture chocolate discs into the microwave and heated until they melted, carefully watching them like a chocolate-watching hawk the whole time which turned out to be 1 minute 45 seconds.)

To make the filling:

Cream the cream cheese, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla and almond extracts and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Reduce the speed of the mixer to medium and add the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well. Scrape down the bowl and beater, as necessary. With the mixer on low, add the sour cream, and the cooled chocolate mixture. Mix thoroughly and pour into the cooled crust.
Bake for 1 hour. Turn the oven off and allow the cake to sit in the oven with the door opened wide for 1 1/2 hours. Take the cake out of the oven and allow it to sit at room temperature, until completely cooled.

For the ganache:

Finely chop the semisweet chocolate and place it in a heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Add the cream and stir until just melted. Set aside until cooled to room temperature.
Remove the cake from the springform pan by carefully running a hot knife around the outside of the cake. Leave the cake on the bottom of the springform pan for serving. Drizzle the ganache over the top of the cheesecake.

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This time I used a water bath because the last time the cake cracked, not a problem because it's covered with ganache anyway, but I hoped to avoid that this time because I'm neurotic that way. This involves wrapping the pan with aluminum foil to prevent the spring-form pan from allowing in a little water from the ban marie.

The ban marie, it failed.

Le boo. Le hoo. Le boo hoo hoo hoo.

I weep.

I wipe away my tears.

I compose myself and hold my chin up high.  Sniff.

Who cares?  I cover this obscene crack with ganache and pretend I planned the whole thing.

Yay! Crack. Gone.

* glees *

* does the happy cheesecake dance *

It's like chocolate foam, with a hint of coffee and a whiff of almond.