Easiest ice cream

This evening involved yet more fun with rhubarb. (I am aware that this blog is turning into a rhubarb fest at the moment but that's all that's growing at the moment on our plot). However, it does also celebrate my first strawberries of the year. Not from the plot, but thanks to Waitrose, they are fairly local (just one county across).

The recipe is made super easy thanks to a simple no egg recipe, an ice cream maker and a mixer.

Now don't feel I'm already betraying my self defined thrifty ethos: we inherited the mixer from my lovely late mother-in-law, while the ice cream maker was payback from 15 years of American Express points. I originally hoped to have enough points to fly To New York and back by now, but as it is I think I have enough a one-way ticket to Belgium. So I decided to cash in and get the most fun thing I could have free with my points.

You could easily make this though by just freezing the mix in a tupperware box, and taking it out of freezer to stir at intervals.

Start by chopping the rhubarb into chunks and simmering it on low heat on the hob, with a splash of fruit juice (whatever you have to hand) and in the meantime hull half a carton or so of strawberries, chuck them into the mixer and give it a good whiz round. It makes a beautiful red purée.





Let the rhubarb cool, before it's added to the strawberry mixture. Then add 75 g of castor sugar, 200mls of double cream and whiz again.





Taste (mainly because it's delicious and you deserve a treat for all this effort!) and then simply pour into the running ice cream maker. Let the ice cream maker do the rest of the work about 20 min or so. The result is beautiful - the closest I've yet got to Sicilian strawberry ice cream (though Mr M will be final adjudicator of this). The rhubarb simply seems to heighten the strawberriness. In fact, if you live with a Rhubarb Rejector, you could possibly pretend it's just strawberry ice cream!



Eat immediately, or store in freezer.

Now I just need it to stop freezing outside and for the sun to come back out!

Stay sweet

Rhubarb reward

Another weekend of digging and allotment 2 is planted up with spuds, and my arms ache like they'll drop off. Now to wait to June, when we dig up the treasure of home grown new potatoes, one of the joys of grow your own.
In the meantime, I'm enjoying fruits of no labour with the rhubarb that grows so well there. One of gardening's mysteries is how a plant that sulks on allotment 1 despite cosseting for 3 years is thriving on the new allotment right next door where it's been overgrown with nettles and docks for at least 5 years (to covetous glances from us and the occasional poaching, ahem)

I've been experimenting with this cookie recipe for a few weeks. It's a good right-I-need-to-bake-NOW recipe, as you melt the butter in a pan, avoiding need for prior prep, and you can measure out each stage while the previous one whizzes round in the mixer.
The original recipe is from a cookbook that's appeared on my shelf (Christmas present? Impulse purchase?) called Cupcakes and Cookies, by Sara Porter & Stuart Adlington, and makes a great chewy choc chip cookie (and the chewiness, for me, makes them definitively a cookie rather than a biscuit).
For these cookies, I replaced the choc chips with chopped preserved ginger (the stuff in jars) and finely chopped (small stems sliced lengthways then sliced) rhubarb. A generous handful of each. If you'd like to make some, here's the recipe I used for the dough, into which you mix the ginger and rhubarb.
Heat oven to 170C/325F/gas 3
250g/9oz plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp ground ginger, to your taste
Sift these together in a bowl and put aside
170g/6oz unsalted butter melted over medium heat
200g/8oz dark or light brown soft sugar (I only had dark, but given the choice for this recipe would prob go with light)
100g/4oz caster sugar (unrefined preferably for flavour)
Whisk these together in mixer til well blended
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 yolk (freeze the white for future meringues or meringue frosting!)
1 whole egg
Beat these into the butter and sugar mix til light and creamy
Mix in the flour etc from stage 1 (or hey, wait til now to measure them out)
You'll now have a soft but sturdy mix that you'll need a bit of elbow grease to mix the chopped ginger and rhubarb into, but give it a good mix with a wooden spoon or spatula to get the pieces fairly evenly combined.
Line 3 baking trays with baking parchment and blob a generously heaped teaspoonful onto the tray. I get 9 per tray, although they do tend to meet up at the edges a bit. Don't squash the dough down - the cookies will melt and flatten out of their own accord in the oven.
Cook for 15 mins, by which time the edges should look cooked, but the middle still soft. Cool on the trays for a few mins, then transfer to wire racks.
They smell heavenly: you just try to resist!

I couldn't! Here's the evidence! http://cinemagr.am/show/2147752
I've had fun with the FREE app, Cinemagram. It's a super simple way to add animation to photos with instagesm stype filters: this was my first ever attempt. I can see how it could be very addictive!
Stay sweet

Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

Now prettiness in cakes is something I aspire to (and pin - a lot) but rarely achieve. Tasty yes, photogenic? Not so much.
so I'm ridiculously over-proud of the rhubarb cupcakes made from this recipe http://www.coconutandlime.com/2008/02/baby-loves-rhubarb-cupcakes.html?m=1

New Lottie is awash with rhubarb (proving what a tough beast this plant is) and I picked a bunch of stalks in joyous celebration the day I heard she was ours.





Not only are the results delicious, but mastering meringue icing (yes, it really is easy) made for much inner smugness.

I ended up whisking by hand in sitting room as Mr M had gone to bed directly above the mixer (which sounds like he sleeps in the kitchen cupboard!) and it still worked.

As with all things of beauty, they had a short but glorious life before my colleagues devoured them.

Cupcake photo by the Lovely Linda




Stay sweet