Ice Cream Ireland

 I had heard about the egg and bacon ice cream at the Fat Duck - a bit of molecular gastronomy from Heston Blumenthal’s wild and weird tasting menu. I found the above video, showing it up close and personal, on the All Things Ice Cream blog.

It wouldn’t be my thing at all, but you might find it interesting!

Technorati tags: Fat Duck, egg, bacon, ice cream

This is not a real tub! It’s those folks over at Slate, who are running a campaign to name a flavour for Barack Obama after Ben Cohen of the Vermont ice cream company endorsed Obama (and the senator won in Vermont - that’s the power of ice cream!) Should Hillary get a flavour as well? How about Mr. McCain? I reserve the right to “borrow” this excellent idea the next time Ireland heads into a general election…

On a different note, I gave a recipe for Green Tea and Ginger ice cream recently, and if you want to see another take on green tea ice cream, head over to Tartelette, for a mouth-watering post about white chocolate and matcha ice cream taken from Kuidaore.

Finally, here are a couple of ice cream blogs to check out: Vegan Ice Cream Paradise (where you can find a vegan version of Guinness ice cream among other things) and Ice Cream Fellow who brings his scientific approach to the ice cream process…

Technorati tags: ice cream, flavour, Barack Obama

Today, I wanted to take a couple of photos of ice cream. I put out a cone to do some exposure tests, then went inside to fetch a different lens.

I hadn’t noticed the presence of Gatsby, the ice cream cat, but when I returned with my lens, I caught him making the most of his opportunity.

Cheeky creature!

It’s kind of hard to take photos while laughing, but I managed to snap off a few.

Gatsby doesn’t like much being the object of humour and knew he was riding his luck, so he stalked off pretty quickly.

Funny as it was, I don’t think this sets a good precedent.

No doubt taking photos of ice cream at home has just become that little bit more difficult!

Technorati tags: cat, Gatsby, eating, ice cream

 I’m in a sweet frame of mind, and here’s a toffee I love to munch on. It’s also used in our Toffee Ice Cream, and I’ll put up the recipe for that in due course. I always love making candy, because I find it such a miracle that sugar can transform itself so radically.

This toffee is very dark and rich, since the recipe calls for dark brown sugar, and one inevitably eats far too much of it. One can, of course, make it with light brown or even regular sugar, but I like the deep flavour of the molasses contained in dark brown sugar.

Ingredients:

• 150 g butter
• 200 g dark brown sugar
• 50 ml water
• 1 teaspoon golden syrup

What to Do:

1. Butter a small baking dish.
2. Combine all of the ingredients in a thick-bottomed saucepan.
3. Stir over medium heat until the ingredients are combined.
4. Turn up the heat and stop stirring.
5. It will start boiling.
6. If it starts smoking around the edges, stir gently in a circle around the edge to keep it from burning.
7. Check if it’s ready by dropping a bit of the toffee in a cup of cold water. It should be firm but not hard to the touch.
8. Immediately remove from the heat and pour into the buttered baking dish.
9. Allow to cool somewhat.
10. When it’s mostly hardened, score it with a knife to make it easier to break.
11. Allow to cool completely, break up and enjoy!

Notes:

1. A word of caution - caramelised sugar is very, very hot, so please take care when making this!
2. Make sure the pan is very clean before you start. If there is residue already on the pan, it is more likely the candy will burn.
3. The final product will have the consistency of the bit you drop into the cold water. If you like your toffee soft, take it off the heat when it forms a soft ball when dropped in the water. If you like your toffee hard, keep cooking and take it off the heat when it forms a hard ball in the water.

Technorati tags: caramel, recipe, toffee, ice cream, candy

In the very unlikely event that you weren’t there and the suspense was killing you - yes - I did wear the entire get-up to the awards list night - white wellies, chef’s hat, dessert-print trousers and all. At least everyone knew who I was, although the funniest thing about it was when I was in the lift heading up to my room, an elderly Scottish couple staying in the hotel smiled at me sympathetically and said, “You’re only just finished? It’s a tough job. I bet you have to cook our breakfast as well tomorrow!”

The night was great, I was honoured to win Best Business Blog, but what really made the evening special meeting and chatting with so many other brilliant bloggers including Frank (thanks for the drink), Simon (congrats), Paul (thanks for sponsoring), Grannymar (congrats), Laura, Sinead (congrats), Manuel, Shane (congrats), Rick (congrats and well done on the night) Copernicus, Deborah (so sorry I won’t make brunch), Jen, Martin, Val (thanks for the drink!), Granddad (congrats), Feebee, Krishna, Markham and so many others that I’d be here all day!

Congrats to all the winners, and thanks so much to Damien and everyone who put on such a great night.

P.S. Thanks also to George Bush for the introductions of each category. (See here).

P.P.S. There are photos here and here.

Technorati Tags: Irish, Blog+Awards, Dublin, 2008