Monday, August 18, 2014

Coffee Ice Cream #IceCreamWeek

Welcome to Ice Cream Week 2014! This year the event is hosted by Kim of Cravings of a Lunatic and Susan of The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen.

We have teamed up with 25 amazing bloggers to bring you ice cream treats all week long. I hope you have as much fun as we did. Break out those stretchy pants and celebrate Ice Cream Week with us.

Our sponsors for the event have provided us with some great prizes.

A huge thanks to Cake Boss, Anolon, Microplane, WÜSTHOF, Page Street Publishing and Quarry Spoon

Kim of Cravings of a Lunatic and Susan of The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen have tossed in a bonus prize of a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker because they think everyone should own one!

Later, a GIVEAWAY. First, some ice cream!

No doubt about it, I like coffee. I like it hot and I like iced coffee. So why not coffee ice cream?

How strong the coffee flavor is in this ice cream depends on how strong your coffee is, but no matter how strong the coffee is, it will be tempered by the milk, cream, and sugar you're adding.

I thought this was pretty terrific plain, but a drizzle of chocolate is a great idea as well. I wouldn't turn down whipped cream, either. This ice cream also works well in a root beer float.

Or how about a frozen ice cream pie? Or a milkshake? Maybe blended with some banana and chocolate.

So many options. Might as well make another batch.

Coffee Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold or room temperature strong coffee, espresso, or cold-brew concentrate*
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Combine the cream, sugar and salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat.

Meanwhile, combine the coffee and cornstarch. That coffee needs to be no warmer than room temperature, or the cornstarch will go all lumpy and you'll be sad.

When the cream is starting to simmer, whisk in (or stir happily) the coffee/cornstarch mixture.

Continue cooking, stirring continuously, until the mixture comes to a boil and it thickens. It should come to a boil and thicken pretty much simultaneously.

Let it cook for a couple moments, then turn off the heat.

Add the milk and vanilla, stirring as you add them. The cold milk will help hasten the cooling of the hot mixture.

Transfer to a storage container, cover, and refrigerate until chilled.

Churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Transfer to a storage container and freeze.

This is particularly good with a drizzle of chocolate sauce. Or plain.

*Or sad, weak coffee, if you don't want a lot of coffee flavor here. Seriously. The stronger the coffee, the stronger the coffee flavor will be in the ice cream. You could even mix instant with 1/2 cup of water to get your preferred coffee strength. Don't be tempted to do something like cutting back to 2 tablespoons of coffee unless you compensate by adding water. Otherwise the fat ratio will be really wonky.

Make sure you swing by for a scoop from each of today's Ice Cream Week Participants:


Other Blogs participating later this week:

Special Guest for the Week is Lindsay Clendaniel of the blog, Scoop Adventures. We’re very excited to have her join us. Lindsay is the author of Scoop Adventures which is chock full of ice cream goodness.

And now for the GIVEAWAY!!!

More goodies to win!
The Ice Cream Week Giveaway is open to U.S. and Canada. It closes at midnight on 31st. It's ONE WINNER TAKES ALL!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
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