The space in sweet bread is important.

A space has never been so important in a food name. Sweet bread is vastly different than sweetbread.

Sweetbread, of course, being the thymus gland of an animal (delicious in Po Boys) and sweet bread being an actual loaf of bread that happens to be sweet.

It can be confusing in writing, but it’s much more confusing in speech.

A recent conversation I had with Betsy:

Bets: What are you cooking today?

Nick: Sweet bread.

Bets: Awesome! My favorite. I can’t wait to try it!

Many hours later…

Bets: I thought you said you were make sweetbreads?!

Nick: Sorry. I should’ve been more specific. I was making sweet space bread.

It turns out though that sweet bread is also a wonderfully delicious thing and one that I’d never made before it won the poll last week. I was really happy with how it turned out!

Portuguese Sweet Bread

Yield: 2 loaves

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 6 hours

Ingredients:

Starter:
1/2 Cup bread flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
2.25 Teaspoons instant yeast
1/2 Cup water

Dough:
6 Tablespoons sugar
1 Teaspoon salt
1/4 Cup powdered milk
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 Large eggs
1 Teaspoon lemon (or almond) extract
1 Teaspoon orange extract
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Cups bread flour
6 Tablespoons water, room temperature

Egg Wash:
1 Egg, whisked with 1 Teaspoon water

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer

Directions:

1) Start sponge by mixing starter ingredients in a medium bowl. Stir until it makes a smooth batter. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 60-90 minutes, until the sponge is very foamy.

2) To make dough, combine sugar, salt, powdered milk, and butter in large bowl or with a paddle attachment in a stand mixer. Combine until smooth.

3) Mix in eggs, one at a time, and extracts.

4) Mix in the sponge and flour and switch to the dough hook. Mix on medium with the dough hook until the dough is very supple and soft. If it is at all wet or sticky add more flour by the spoonful. Alternatively, you can knead by hand on a floured surface until the desired consistency is reached. This will take 10-12 minutes with a mixer or 15-16 minutes by hand.

5) Add dough ball to a lightly greased bowl, cover and let ferment until it doubles in size, about 2 hours.

6) Remove dough from bowl and divide into two pieces. Form each piece into a tight round ball (a boule). Lightly oil two 9-inch pie pans and place one boule in each pan, seam side down. Cover loosely and let rise for another 2-3 hours, until the dough doubles in size.

7) Brush loaves with egg wash.

8) Bake loaves at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes until they are a deep brown and sound slightly hollow when thumped.

9) Remove from the oven and let cool on wire racks. Let cool for at least 45 minutes before slicing.

Adapted from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Making the Starter

Like a lot of real bread recipes, this loaf involves a starter. Don’t worry, this particular starter is really easy and doesn’t take days to make. You just need a few ingredients.

The basics.

Mix these all together with some water and let it ferment for 60-90 minutes until it gets nice and foamy. This also has the added benefit of making sure your yeast is nice and lively.

After the rise time, it should be really foamy and on the verge of collapse.

It's alive!

Making the Dough

If there is one book for which I’m very afraid to alter the recipes, it’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. The recipes are so specific that I just always feel like I’m committing some sort of cardinal sin if I change them.

So I feel obligated to disclose two changes that I made to this recipe. One I made on purpose and one I made on accident. Neither change made for a bad loaf.

First, I used 4 tablespoons of butter in my recipe while the original recipe called for 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of vegetable shortening. I made this change on purpose because I didn’t have any vegetable shortening!

Second, the original recipe called for lemon extract but I used almond extract in my version. The only reason I made this change is because I apparently cannot read.

Regardless, the one ingredient in this recipe that Mr. Reinhart says you 100% cannot substitute is powdered milk. I get that. It gives the final loaf a very specific flavor and texture. It’s not really negotiable.

Powdered milk is apparently important.

To start the dough, add the butter (or butter and shortening if you’re using both) to a bowl with the salt, sugar, and powdered milk and kind of work them together with a large spoon.

You could also add them to a stand mixer and beat them with a paddle attachment. You basically want to cream them together and I did kind of a piss poor job of it. Ideally, it would be one creamy texture.

Not my best job...

Anyway, then add your eggs one at a time, and the extracts and continue to mix.

Once all that is mixed together, add your starter that has been foaming away along with your bread flour and water.

That starter is cool stuff.

While you can definitely make this recipe with a stand mixer, I went ahead and made it by hand just to be different.

If you do use a mixer, switch to the dough hook after you get your ingredients together and stir it on medium for 10-12 minutes until the dough ball is a nice, soft texture.

If you’re doing it by hand, stir everything together until you get a rough ball. Something kind of like this…

Dough?

Scoop this out onto a lightly floured counter and start kneading! Here’s the bad news… this will take 15-16 minutes depending on your kneading skills. If the dough gets sticky at any point, knead in another spoonful of flour.

The resulting dough ball should be very smooth and soft and easy to work with.

Once you get it there, add it to a lightly oiled bowl so it can rise!

Dough!

The First Rising

Let the dough rise until it about doubles in size. This should take about two hours. This dough is incredibly soft and easy to work with. It actually reminded me of doughnut dough…

Doubling is about right.

A Strange Step

I was a bit confused about the next step. Actually, I’m still confused by it so I shoudln’t use past tense. The recipe calls to divide the dough into two even pieces and form loaves of dough. Makes sense, but then it says to add those boules to lightly greased pie pans.

I’m completely at a loss as to why you have to bake these in pie pans, but here it goes.

No idea why pie pans are needed.

The Second Rising

Once you’ve put your dough balls into the pie pans (seriously you can just use sheet pans as far as I can tell), cover them loosely and let them rise a second time.

Again, they should double in size which will take another 2 hours or so.

Then brush each loaf with a light coat of the egg wash.

For a nice brown crust...

Baking and Cooling

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for about 50-60 minutes.

After about 30 minutes they will start to get very browned. Have no fear. They won’t burn. Just let them keep cooking until the full 50-60 minutes is up. They should sound slightly hollow when thumped when they are done. If you’re in doubt, let them bake for another 5 minutes.

When you pull them out, let them cool on a wire rack. These are really pretty!

Pretty things!

I loved the crust on these loaves. After you let them cool for about 45 minutes, you can slice into them to reveal a nice crust and a very soft crumb which is awesome.

Makes great toast!

As you might guess, the dough is slightly sweet but also has great flavor from all the different extracts.

This bread is great on its own with some butter but is also good as toast with a dab of Nutella.

I hadn’t made a good loaf of bread in awhile so I was really happy with how these turned out!

The crumb is awesome.

If I were to tell you that size matters, you would probably think I was telling an inappropriate joke.

On any other day, you would be correct.

But on this day, I’m talking about coffee cake. And size definitely matters when it comes to coffee cake.

Not the size of the cake actually, but the size of crumb.

Let’s face it, the best part of any coffee cake is the brown sugar laced, slightly crunchy crumb that tops the cake. That’s why coffee cake exists. So why not go big on it? Why not pile on heaps of the stuff?

Why not indeed. And that’s what this coffee cake includes: A big thick layer of nothing but crumb.

Blackberry Big Crumb Coffee Cake

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

For Filling:
1 pint blackberries, washed and halved
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon corn starch

For the Big Crumbs:
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon crystallized ginger, mashed
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 3/4 cups cake flour
A pinch of salt

Cake:
1/3 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces and softened

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees

2) Butter an 8-inch-square baking pan.

3) For filling, slice blackberries in half and toss with sugar and cornstarch. Set aside.

4) To make crumbs, in a large bowl, whisk together sugars, spices, salt and butter until smooth. Stir in flour with a spatula. It will be a solid dough.

5) To prepare cake, in a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, egg, egg yolk and vanilla.

6) In a separate mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add butter and a spoonful of sour cream mixture and mix on medium speed with a hand mixer or stand mixer until flour is moistened. Increase speed and beat for 30 seconds. Add remaining sour cream mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition, and scraping down the sides of bowl with a spatula.

7) Scoop out about 1/2 cup batter and set aside.

8) Scrape remaining batter into prepared pan. Spoon blackberries over batter. Dollop set-aside batter over blackberries; no need for it to be even.

9) Using your fingers, break topping mixture into big crumbs, about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in size. They do not have to be uniform, but make sure most are around that size. Sprinkle over cake.

10) Bake cake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean of batter (it might be moist from blackberries), about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Cool before serving.

Adapted from a NY Times recipe.

Berry Berry Good

There’s a fair amount of ingredients in this bad boy, but there are lots of duplicates so it isn’t too bad really. There’s three basic parts to the cake and we’ll make them all separately and then pile them all together: The cake, the berry filling, and the big crumb topping.

Let’s start with the filling. I went with blackberries, but you could use any berry I think.

Pretty things.

Assuming you do you blackberries, I recommend chopping them in half just because they can be a bit large.

Then just mix them in a bowl with the other filling ingredients. Filling is done!

I worried that the filling would be too watery, but it turned out fine.

I was worried about this, but it worked great.

Crumb Time

This is a great recipe for crumb. It’s nice and thick and produces big chunks of crunchy and sweet topping. It’s a keeper for sure.

The one ingredient that you may not have used before is crystallized ginger. It gives the crumb a really light ginger flavor which is amazing. If you can’t find it though, don’t worry about it. It’s not essential to the recipe.

One of my favorite ingredients.

If you use the crystallized ginger, be sure to chop it up really finely. The stuff is pretty strong and you wouldn’t want someone to bite into a big nugget of it.

Combine that with all the other crumb ingredients (except the flour) in a large bowl. Once everything is combined well, stir in the cake flour with a spatula or large spoon. And yes. You must use cake flour. No substitutions.

The finished crumb will a really thick dough that will kind of crumble if you pick it up. That’s what you want.

What's up crumb?!

The Cake

The cake part of this recipe is pretty straightforward. Mix together all the wet ingredients in a small bowl (eggs, yolks, sour cream, and vanilla). Then in a large bowl, add the dry ingredients, the softened butter, and just a spoonful of the sour cream mixture.

Beat this together with a hand mixer or stand mixer until the butter and flour and sugar are mixed in together well.

Starting that cake.

Once that’s all beaten together a bit, go ahead and add in all the liquid ingredients and continue to mix until the batter is smooth. It will be a pretty thick batter, but try not to over-mix it. Basically, stop mixing when you can’t see any flour.

This was my finished batter.

This is an odd batter, but it works.

Finishing the Coffee Cake

In a lightly buttered 8×8 baking dish, scrape in almost all of the cake batter. Leave about 1/2 cup of the batter for later.

Then add on all of your blackberry filling followed by the rest of your cake batter. It’s okay if it’s not perfectly spaced out. Just kind of get it all in there.

Batter, blackberries, batter.

Next, take all your crumb mixture and break it up into large pieces. Add those pieces to the cake!

The crumb will pretty much completely cover the entire cake which is awesome.

So crumby.

Because there’s a lot of moisture in the berries, you’ll need to bake this cake for a bit longer than you would without them.

Bake it at a low 325 for 60-75 minutes. A toothpick should come out of the center cleanly.

The finished version will be a thing of beauty.

A bit rustic looking...

Let this guy cool completely and then you can chop it up and serve it up.

Check out the cross-section on this cake. It’s like half crumb which is perfect.

A peek inside.

I made a few different coffee cakes over the years here on Macheesmo, but this is definitely my favorite to-date.

It would be a great thing to have around for the holidays for people to snack on with their morning coffee!

An army!

You guys happened to pick one of my favorite dessert flavors for the poll last week. It’s a rare day that what I want to win actually wins. I got lucky this time around!

Besides using something with almond, I also wanted to make something super-easy to make.

In fact, these guys are so easy to make you don’t even have to turn on your oven!

This was my first attempt at making truffles and while they didn’t turn out perfectly shaped and I would probably need a few professional lessons before getting hired by See’s candy, I was completely happy with the result.

Almond Truffles

Yield: Makes about 40.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon butter
2 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted
4 ounces almonds, about a cup, ground
1/4 cup cocoa powder, for coating

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Food Processor

Directions:

1) Cream together butter and cream cheese using a hand mixer or stand mixer until it is fluffy and smooth.

2) Toast coconut in a dry skillet over medium-low heat until it's a light brown color, about 4-5 minutes. Be careful not to burn the coconut.

3) Process almonds in a food processor until they are a rough meal.

4) With cream cheese/butter mixture, add in extracts and powdered sugar. Then stir in coconut and almond meal.

5) Make teaspoon sized balls of the dough and roll them into a tight ball with your hands. Toss them in cocoa powder until completely coated.

6) Chill for storage or serve immediately. These are best served at room temperature.

Adapted from a Food52 recipe.

Truffle Basics

I had never made truffles before and the first thing that shocked me was how little material actually goes into the balls. To make about 40 truffles, I only used 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 ounces of cream cheese.

Sure, there are a lot of add-ins and stuff, but the actual binder for the truffles is just a very tiny amount of these two ingredients.

The basics.

Add the butter and cream cheese to a mixing bowl and beat it until it is a light and smooth texture. I used my stand mixer for this, but you could just as easily use a hand mixer.

After a few minutes of beating you should be all set.

This actually makes a lot of truffles.

After this, mix in your extracts (vanilla and almond) and also the powdered sugar.

The Add-ins

Now for the fun stuff. This is where all the flavor and texture comes from for these truffles.

No need to peel.

For the almonds, just measure out 4 ounces (about a cup) and quickly process them in a mini-food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, I would just put my almonds in a plastic bag and crush them with a mallet or something.

Your goal is to get a really nice almond meal.

Easy breazy.

Besides the almonds, there’s also coconut in this recipe. I’m not always a huge coconut fan, but I really liked it in this recipe.

The key to coconut is to make sure you toast it lightly before using it. I just toasted mine in a dry skillet for a few minutes over medium-low heat. Be sure to keep an eye on the coconut and stir it frequently.

It can go from toasted to burned in about 30 seconds.

This is what you’re shooting for!

Don't burn it!

Add in the almond meal and coconut to the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar.

Stir this all together and your truffle mixture is done!

Try to not eat this with a spoon.

Making the Truffles

Keep in mind that truffles are supposed to be bite-sized treats. This stuff is pretty rich and nobody wants a candy bar sized truffle.

I literally used a teaspoon to measure out my truffles. To make one, scoop out a heaping teaspoon of the mixture and then lightly roll it into a ball using your hands.

See how small it is?

Small is good.

Toss the ball into a bowl of cocoa powder and shake it around to coat it completely.

You can do more than one at a time.

Once you get the hang of it, you can do 5 or 6 at a time and then just toss them all with the cocoa powder at the same time.

It took me maybe 10 minutes to pop out about 40 of these bite-sized goodies.

As I finished them, I just set them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The paper just makes it a bit easier to clean up. There’s really no danger of the truffles sticking to anything.

Not bad for my first truffle.

While these are supposed to be one bite treats, I bit one in half so you can see the story.

Pretty delicious stuff. The cocoa powder is sharp and intense and then then the whole thing just melts in your mouth.

Chomp!

Store these in the fridge, but they are best served at room temperature. So, if you can, take them out of the fridge 10 minutes before eating them.

I find this next to impossible because when I open my fridge, there they are, and I just pop one in my mouth.

So, that serving method works too.

These are really unique and they look and taste way harder than they actually are. Give them a shot if you’re a truffle fan, an almond fan, or a fan of good stuff that requires very little work!

Unassuming, but delicious.

This year I decided to participate in my first ever Cookie Swap!

This means that I sent out three boxes of cookies to three food bloggers and three other food bloggers will be hopefully sending me three boxes of goodies.

While I was mailing my boxes of cookies I did have this moment of thinking that this might be some very elaborate pyramid scheme to get millions of free holiday cookies for a few lucky people!

I had this vision of the creators (Lindsay and Julie) sitting around hundreds of boxes of collected cookies… laughing all the way to the dentist’s office.

Of course, that won’t really happen. Food bloggers are generally the nicest people ever and I have full faith that I’ll receive my delicious boxes of cookies.

This year I think something crazy like 700 food bloggers signed up for the cookie swap. I have no earthly idea how long it took Lindsay and Julie to organize and match that many people, but I do honestly hope they sent themselves a few free boxes of cookies just for the trouble!

If you want to sign up for next year’s cookie swap, there’s already a signup form for it.

These brown butter guys are the cookies I sent out to my matches!

Brown Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Yield: 36 cookies

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, browned
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oat flour
3 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant kind)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 Cup dried cherries, chopped
1 Cup chocolate chips

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Directions:

1) Add butter to a small saucepan over medium heat. Melt butter, stirring slowly. After butter melts, continue to cook for a few minutes until the butter solids start to brown. It easy to tell this if you use a non-dark colored pan as you'll be able to actually see the brown bits on the bottom. You can also tell when the butter is browned by the smell. It will start to smell very nutty which means it's done!

2) Pour off browned butter carefully. Try to leave most of the browned solids in the pan, but it's okay if some go with the butter. Let this cool.

3) Cream together sugars with brown butter until they are smooth using a hand mixer or stand mixer.

4) Beat in eggs one at a time and vanilla extract.

5) In a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients except chocolate chips and cherries.

6) Slowly mix in dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Mix until just combined.

7) Stir in add-ins (chocolate and cherries).

8) Spoon large tablespoons of cookie dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

9) Bake cookies at 375 for 10-12 minutes until they are lightly browned around the edges.

10) Let cookies cool on a wire rack.

Butter, Browned

What I like about these cookies is that they are surprising. They look just like normal old oatmeal cookies, but they are jam-packed with flavor.

Step one to creating that flavor is to brown some butter. That gives the cookies a great nutty flavor that goes really well with the brown sugar.

If you’ve never browned butter before, it’s not all that hard. Just add your butter to a small saucepan and melt the butter over medium heat. Stir it frequently and after a few minutes the butter solids will separate out and sink to the bottom of the pan.

If you have a light colored saucepan, you’ll be able to actually start to see them brown a bit. You’ll also be able to smell the butter. When it’s done, it will have an intense nutty smell.

Start to finish, the butter browning process maybe takes 5-6 minutes.

Then you can pour off your browned butter. Try to leave behind most of the butter solids, but its okay if some get mixed in. It won’t affect the recipe at all.

Flavor town.

The Cookie Dough

Start this dough by mixing together all the dry ingredients in a bowl. If you can’t find oat flour, you can definitely use just all-purpose flour.

All the dry business.

Using a stand mixer or a hand mixer, beat together the browned butter and sugars until they are smooth and light. This should take a few minutes.

Then slowly mix in your eggs and your vanilla.

Once that is all mixed together, slowly mix in your dry ingredients, working in batches.

Try not to overmix this dough. When the flour is incorporated, it’s done!

Pretty simple.

The Add-ins

I figured these cookies would have lots of flavor and great texture as-is, but this is a cookie swap so I wanted to amp up the flavor even more.

So I mixed in some chocolate and dried cherries. I figured it’s hard to go wrong with these flavors.

Don't skimp on these!

Once those are mixed in your dough is done and you’re ready to make some cookies!

This makes a lot of cookies.

Baking the Cookies

Scoop large tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. You should get about 36 cookies out of this recipe.

Twelve cookies per baking sheet should be about right.

Ready to go!

Bake these guys at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

The should be lightly browned around the edges and still a bit soft in the center.

Let them cool on a wire rack if you have one.

If you’re photographing your cookies, here’s a TIP! Don’t photograph them on a counter that is almost exactly the same color as the cookies.

Talk about camouflage!

My counter is like camo for these...

The Packaging

I stressed out a lot about how to ship these cookies. I ended up letting the cookies cool completely and then sealing them well in a large freezer plastic bag.

Next I lined a large box with plastic wrap and filled the bottom with spicy kettle corn! I figured that would cushion the cookies a bit and also give the recipients a little extra treat.

The finished package!

Signed. Sealed. Delivered.

Now I need to make another batch of these for myself!

Very yummy.

These are called Andes Blondies, but when you say it, you should pronounce it like, “Andes Blaanndies.” So it rhymes.

Rhyming is important for a dish like this.

Other things that are very important for this dessert: peppermint, chocolate, butter.

More good news: These blaanndies are super-easy to make. Just a few ingredients and maybe ten minutes and you’re on your way to some delicious dessert bars that will absolutely disappear.

They are rich and chewy and have an awesome chocolate and peppermint flavor.

Andes Blondies

Yield: 20 blondies

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Teaspoons peppermint extract
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1 Cup white chocolate chips
Butter, for dish
28 Andies mints (one package)

Directions:

1) Melt butter and sugar together in a double boiler until the sugar is dissolved.

2) Whisk together well and let cool to room temperature. Then whisk in eggs, vanilla, and peppermint. Once those are combined well, stir in flour.

3) Stir in white chocolate and pour batter into a lightly buttered 9x13 baking dish.

4) Bake blondies for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees.

5) Let cool slighly and add half of your chopped Andies mints.

6) Let the blondies cool to room temperature and add the other half of the mints so some are melted and some are not. Gently press on the mints so they stick to the blondies.

7) Slice and serve!

A Blondie Batter

If you’ve never made blondies before, they are very similar to brownies except not brown. Basically, there’s no chocolate mixed into the batter itself, but you can always fold in chocolate chips or something like I did.

I think the texture is great because it’s just a butter, sugar, flour, egg mixture that ends up being really dense.

I recommend using light brown sugar, but you could use dark in a pinch.

Hard to go wrong with these...

Besides those basics, you can go crazy with add-ins. I made some blondies awhile ago that had all kinds of add-ins.

For this version, I kept it pretty simple because the topping has a pretty rich flavor. I had to add these three guys though.

The flavors!

To start the batter, just melt the butter and sugar over a double boiler or in a pan over low heat. You don’t want to burn the butter or sugar so just be careful with it.

Once the sugar is dissolved with the melted butter, take it off the heat and whisk in the extracts (vanilla and peppermint). Continue to whisk the butter/sugar mixture gently until it cools down a bit.

It won’t take long to cool down, but you want to make sure it’s not hot when you add the eggs or you’ll end up with an Andies scrambled egg casserole which is definitely not delicious.

Really simple batter.

Whisk in the eggs and then stir in the flour and the pinch of salt.

Once your batter is mixed up, you can fold in all those delicious chocolate chips!

You could use normal chocolate also.

Baking and Topping

Pour your batter into a lightly buttered 9×13 baking dish and bake it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. I always err on the side of under-baking stuff like this so you might want to start checking yours around 28 minutes.

Ideally, the blondies will be lightly browned around the edges and still slightly soft in the center.

After 3o minutes, mine were perfect.

Still a bit soft in the center.

I’ll be honest. The most annoying part of this recipe is unwrapping 28 Andes mints.

Once you have them unwrapped though, give them a very rough chop.

Kind of annoying to unwrap...

I decided to add my Andes mints in two batches. I added about half right away and those kind of melted onto the blondies.

Then I let the blondies cool down to roughly room temperature and then I added the last half and just gently pressed them into the blondies so they stick.

This way half of them are whole and half are melted.

I like the look that this gave them, but it’s not really necessary. I think you could add all of them right away or wait. Whatever works for ya.

Some melting is good.

Use a knife to chop these guys up once they are cool. You should get about 20 bars out of one baking dish (4×5).

Chop'em up!

These are dense and chewy bars that have a very delicious flavor.

Besides being wonderfully decadent, they also have the added bonus of giving you minty fresh breath!

Ice cream in winter? Sure.

All this week on Macheesmo I’m making cookies! Be sure to check out the full list of cookie recipes on Macheesmo for even more cookie ideas.

As you’ll learn if you stick around for this full week, my definition of “cookie” is pretty broad. I should’ve probably called it “Dessert-that-you-can-eat-with-your-hands week”, but that doesn’t have the same flair.

Some might be shocked to see an ice cream based recipe in December, but I’m just not one of those guys that only likes to eat ice cream when it’s warm outside.

In fact, I’m up for eating ice cream pretty much any time. I could have hypothermia and be lost in the Canadian wilderness and probably still be up for a double scoop.

Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches

Yield: 24 sandwiches

Prep Time: 1 hour + ice cream resting

Total Time: 2 hours + plus freezing time

Ingredients:

Chocolate Chip Cookies:
Makes 48 small cookies.
8.5 ounces cake flour (2 cups minus 2 Tbsp.)
8.5 ounces bread flour (1 2/3 cups)
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cups unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
12 ounces chocolate chips

Vanilla Ice Cream:
Makes about 1 quart.
1 cup milk
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
3/4 cup sugar
1 pinch salt
2 cups heavy cream
6 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Helpful Equipment:
Stand mixer or hand mixer
Ice Cream maker (I used the kitchenaid attachment which works okay.)
Mesh Strainer (for straining ice cream custard)

Directions:

1) For ice cream, slip vanilla bean in half and scrape out seeds into a medium saucepan with milk, sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer, then remove from heat immediately, cover, and let sit for one hour.

2) Whisk together yolks in a bowl. Bring milk mixture back up to heat (not simmering, just hot). Once hot, whisk in about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture slowly into the yolks to temper them. THen whisk yolks back into milk mixture.

3) Cook over low heat, scraping regularly and stirring with a heat-resistant spatula. Cook until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula, about 5-6 minutes.

4) In a separate bowl, add cream and set bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice (ice bath). Once custard is thick, strain into cream. Stir well to combine and cool, then stir in vanilla extract.

5) Chill custard overnight or until thoroughly chilled. Then add to ice cream maker and churn according to instructions for your machine. Freeze ice cream until it's solid. I like to stir mine a few times while it is freezing solid to remove ice crystals.

For cookies:
1) Mix together dry ingredients (flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda). Set aside.

2) Cream together butter and sugars. Then mix in one egg at a time, slowly. Once all the eggs are incorporated, stir in vanilla.

3) Slowly stir in dry ingredients. Once dry ingredients are mixed in add chocolate chips and stir just until they are evenly distributed. Try not to overmix.

4) At this point you can chill the dough for up to 2 days if you want.

5) To bake, scoop tablespoon sized balls onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. You should get about 48 cookies out of the batch. Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes until they are lightly browned, but still somewhat soft.

6) Let cookies cool completely (preferably on a wire rack).

Making the sandwiches:
1) Once your cookies are made, transfer them to a large container and freeze them for about an hour.

2) Scoop a few tablespoon of ice cream and sandwich it between two cookies. Eat immediately or transfer to a freezer safe dish and freeze for up to 2 months.

Cookie recipe adapted from NY Times. Ice Cream adapted from a David Lebovitz recipe.

The Ice Cream

The most obvious shortcut that you could take for this recipe is just to buy ice cream from the store. You could sandwich almost any ice cream between these cookies and be in good shape. Since I figured I’d be snacking on these for a long time, I thought it would be worth it to make a really rich and delicious vanilla ice cream.

Any good vanilla ice cream recipe has to start with real vanilla beans. They are expensive, but the flavor is hard to beat.

Anytime you’re working with vanilla remember to split the bean and scrape out all those tiny vanilla seeds. Lots of flavor there!

Caviar? Nope. But still expensive.

If you’ve never made homemade ice cream before, it isn’t really that hard. You basically just make a custard and then chill it.

So start by combining your vanilla, sugar, salt, and milk in a saucepan. Bring this to a simmer and then let it sit, covered, for about an hour. This will infuse the milk with all that vanilla flavor (top left).

In a separate bowl, whisk together your egg yolks. Then heat up your milk mixture again (not simmering but hot). Then slowly whisk in about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture into the whisked yolks. This will bring them up to temperature and then you can whisk the warm yolks back into the hot milk mixture without worry that they will cook.

Cook this mixture over low heat until it thickens enough to coat a spatula. Be sure to stir this constantly and scrape the bottom of the pan to make sure it isn’t sticking. After 5-6 minutes, it should start to get very thick (bottom left).

Then strain this mixture and whisk it into your heavy cream. Add the vanilla and cool this as quickly as possible. I like to do this by putting the bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice (bottom right).

This might seem like a drawn out process, but minus the hour that you have to wait for the milk to infuse, it’s really only about 10 minutes of work.

Let this custard mixture chill thoroughly before making the ice cream. I recommend chilling it in the fridge for at least a few hours.

The Leftovers

A good vanilla bean will probably cost you $3-4. So don’t throw it away after you’re done with it in the custard mixture. There’s still tons of flavor in that bean actually. I like to cut my bean into a few pieces and add it to a dish with a few cups of sugar. Seal this and shake it up and after a week or so you’ll have some delicious vanilla sugar that you can use for a ton of things.

Still lots of flavor in those beans.

Making the Ice Cream

Depending on your ice cream maker, there will be different instructions for actually churning the ice cream.

I used my KitchenAid attachment which works pretty well. If I were buying an ice cream maker today though, I think I’d get a stand alone model.

Churn it!

Once your ice cream is churned to a nice soft serve consistency, you can scoop it into a dish and let it freeze solid in your freezer.

I actually like to take my ice cream out and stir it every hour or so just to make sure large ice crystals aren’t forming in the ice cream.

Soft serve.

The Cookies

I’m not going to go into a huge amount of detail on the chocolate chip cookies that I made for this. I used the same recipe that I used for my pretzel chocolate chip cookies. You can also check out the printed version of this recipe for thorough instructions.

Instead of making 18 huge cookies though, I made about 48 smaller cookies.

The cookies are pretty straightforward. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Cream together butter and sugars. Stir in eggs and extracts. Then slowly mix in flour followed by chocolate chips.

At this point you can chill the dough for a few days, but I just baked them immediately on this day. For the cookies you want to shoot for large tablespoon-sized cookies and should get 12 per baking sheet.

I recommend using parchment paper to make sure they don’t stick to the baking sheets.

Pretty straightforward.

Bake these cookies for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees. They should be lightly browned around the edges and still a bit soft in the middle.

Let them cool completely.

Building the Sandwiches

The only trick to making these sandwiches is that I would recommend freezing the cookies quickly before actually making them. I just stacked all of my cookies in a large casserole dish and then froze them for about an hour. That will make them more firm and easier to work with.

Chill these guys first.

A few tablespoons of ice cream smashed between two cookies is all you need for a really delicious dessert.

These are a bit of work, I won’t lie, but they make a bunch and keep perfectly so your work will pay dividends. You could also take some shortcuts if you want like using store-bought ice cream.

So good.

There’s a couple of things that I love about this treat. First, it combines my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and my favorite vanilla ice cream recipe. So yea. These are good.

Second, I love that since you freeze these, they keep for a really long time! This recipe makes about two dozen ice cream sandwiches and eating more than one at a time is a feat. So they keep for a while and you’ll have easy access to a quick frozen dessert should the urge strike you.

Even though I made these about a month ago, I’m still snacking on them and they are basically as good as they were on day one!

Checkmate!

I had never even heard of chess pie until about two years ago. Betsy and I were picking out a caterer for our wedding and when we finally selected one, we told him that we were going to make our own desserts.

He was totally cool with this, but he did recommend that we at least try his chess pie. Considering I had never even heard of chess pie, I was pretty skeptical.

After taking one bite, we ordered a bunch of them. I had no idea what was in it, but it was good. Some sort of deep rich custard mixture in a pie shell. I had to immediately apologize for eating half of the poor man’s pie before he even knew what happened.

While traditionally chess pie has a lemon base, I decided to change it up a bit and try one with a chocolate and orange flavor. It kind of turned out like one of those chocolate oranges you can get over the holidays, except in pie form.

In other words, freakin’ good.

It’s a really rich pie and one could easily serve 10-12 people. It would be a great and unique pie for the holidays!

Chocolate Orange Chess Pie

Yield: Serves 12.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Crust:
3 cups graham crackers, crushed
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon sugar
1 pinch of salt

Filling:
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 ounces semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornmeal
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 orange, zest only
1/4 cup orange juice
4 large eggs
1 pinch of salt

Helpful Equipment:
Zester
Tart pan with removable bottom

Directions:

1) For crust, crush graham crackers until they are finely ground. The easiest way to do this is to pulse them in a food processor, but you can break them up by putting them in a plastic bag and rolling them with a rolling pin also.

2) Mix melted butter in with graham crackers and add sugar and salt. Mix well.

3) Press crust mixture into a 10 inch tart pan with a removable bottom. You can also use a normal pie pan if you don't have one of these.

4) Bake the crust at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Then let it cool.

5) For filling, melt butter and chocolate in a pan over low heat.

6) Stir in sugar, cornmeal, vanilla, salt and orange ingredients. Make sure mixture is roughly room temperature and then beat in the eggs.

7) Pour filling into prepared crust and bake the pie for 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees.

8) Let pie cool on a wire rack for 15-20 minutes before serving.

Making the Crust

I used my standard graham cracker crust for this recipe. When you’re crushing up your graham crackers, you can use a food processor or take it as an opportunity to get some aggression out!

Just stick all the crackers in a large plastic bag and whack them with a rolling pin until they are finely ground.

Then mix them with your other crust ingredients. Be sure to measure out your 3 cups of graham crackers after you crush them into bits.

Making the crust.

I used a cool tart pan with a removable bottom for this pie, but you could use any pie dish that you have.

Just add your graham cracker mixture to the pie dish and pack it evenly around the bottom and up the edges of the dish. I use a combination of my hands and a measuring cup to make sure the crust is really packed in evenly. Take your time with this step. You want a nice even crust.

Take your time here...

Once you’re happy with your crust, bake it at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes and then let it cool.

Meanwhile, you can…

Make the Filling

This filling is really close to fudge. It doesn’t have flour in it though so it’s more custard-like I guess. Whatever you want to call it, it’s very rich and perfect for a pie.

Start by melting your chocolate and butter together in a pan over low heat. I actually use a metal bowl over some boiling water (double boiler) just to make sure my stuff doesn’t burn.

Hard to go wrong here...

Once it’s melted, there’s a few key ingredients that need to get whisked in to the filling. You can take it off the heat after everything is melted.

Sugar, vanilla, and salt are all pretty standard ingredients, but one that really makes this filling is orange zest.

You’ll need a zester for this obviously.

Balance!

When you’re zesting, try to just get the orange part of the zest. If you get a lot of the white part of the peel, then it starts to get a bit bitter.

You will only be able to get a teaspoon or so of zest off of one orange, but the zest is really flavorful. It will be plenty to flavor the filling.

Aggressive zesting.

I also stirred in a small amount of orange juice just to round out the orange flavors.

The other secret ingredient that you might not think about is cornmeal. One tablespoon will do the trick, but it just gives the filling some body.

It’s the ingredient that will give the filling a texture that people won’t expect. You could leave it out and the filling would still work, but it’s a nice touch.

Secret ingredient alert!

Finally, make sure that your filling has cooled down to around room temperature and then mix in your eggs.

Stir this all together and your filling is done!

A filling... a soup... whatever.

Baking the Pie

Pour your filling into your prepared pie crust. Keep in mind the filling will puff up as it cooks so make sure you have 1/2 inch of space at the top. Don’t fill the pie all the way up even if you have enough filling to do so.

Looking good.

Bake this bad boy for 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees.

It’ll come out of the oven puffed and beautiful.

Looking better!

Chess pie is really just fudge pie in my opinion. The top of the pie gets a bit crunchy, but the filling is just like a delicious fudge.

This should go without saying but the chocolate and orange flavors are awesome together. That was just a no brainer!

This is a dense slice!

If you’re sick of the classic pumpkin pie every year, try out chess pie. It’s rich just like a pumpkin pie and can be served with whipped cream.

I was really happy with how this turned out.

Any chess pie fans out there? Leave a comment!

Sometimes I have good ideas.

One of the things that I really like to do when I’m coming up with a recipe is turn stuff inside out. Put what’s normally on the inside on the outside.

If you have a good flavor combo, it keeps that combo but can give you really interesting, new textures.

Now that you’re kind of inside my brain, you can probably see how it’s not a huge leap to take a chocolate covered pretzel and flip it all around.

This cookie is the result and I think that it might be the best cookie I’ve ever made. I’m not going to go so far as to call it The Best Cookie EVER like so many people do, but I’ll just say that I would put it up against any other cookie in a taste test and leave it at that.

Pretzel Chip Cookies

Yield: 18 cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

8.5 ounces (a scant two cups) cake flour
8.5 ounces (1 2/3 cups) bread flour
1 1/4 Teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 Teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/4 Cups unsalted butter
1 Cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 Cups sugar
2 eggs
2 Teaspoons vanilla extract
1 pound chocolate chips, at least 60% cocoa
Hard pretzels, crushed

Helpful Equipment:
Kitchen Scale
Stand mixer or hand mixer

Directions:

1) Sift together flours with other dry ingredients except sugar.

2) Cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Mix in eggs one at a time and vanilla.

3) Mix in dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Then fold in chocolate chips.

4) Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rest for 24 hours in the fridge.

5) When ready to bake cookies, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

6) Make 3.5 ounce balls of dough (a large golf ball). Press dough ball into crushed pretzels on top. Press on a lot of pretzels.

7) Add cookie to baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Six cookies should fit on each baking sheet.

8) Bake cookies for 18-20 minutes until lightly browned but still chewy on the inside.

9) Let cookies cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to rack to finish cooling.

Adapted from an NY Times Recipe.

The Flours

I’ve been eyeing the recipe that I adapted for these guys for a while. One of the things that intrigued me about it was how it ditches all-purpose flour for a mixture of cake flour and bread flour. I could see how that would give the cookies a soft texture but still be somewhat chewy which sounds like a winning cookie to me.

Interesting flour combo.

I usually don’t worry about weighing cookie ingredients, although I know I should, but for this recipe it seemed to call for a very exact ratio of cake flour and bread flour so I pulled out my digital scale.

Gotta weigh it!

As far as the chocolate goes, the article in the NY Times goes on and on about how to get the absolute perfect ratio of chocolate to dough and exactly what kinds of chips result in the best cookie.

I’m sure they are right, but I’m not really going to order chocolate off the internet just to make chocolate chips cookies. So I just picked up a few different kinds of chips that looked good to me and tossed them in.

Use a few different chips.

Making the Dough

This is a pretty standard cookie dough to make.

Start by sifting together the flours and other dry ingredients except the sugar. It is somewhat important to sift the flours here because cake flour can sometimes clump up pretty badly.

Then, using a mixer (hand or stand) beat together the sugar and butter until it’s a light, fluffy texture. Then mix in the eggs one at a time on low. Then add the vanilla.

Next, add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture and mix until the flour is incorporated. Mix on low and don’t over mix it or your cookies will get too chewy.

It should take under a minute to get your flour mixed in, then gently mix in your chocolate chips until they are evenly incorporated.

Don't over-mix it!

The Waiting

There was one part of the article that I was a bit skeptical about. They said that it’s very important to let your cookie dough rest in the fridge for at least 24 hours before baking your cookies.

This is a serious test of willpower. You have these delicious cookies just sitting there, but you have to wait.

The idea behind it is to give the dough plenty of time to absorb all the liquid. If you bake them right away, the flour won’t get a chance to even absorb the eggs.

I didn’t actually bake a cookie right away to compare, but I must say that the dough had a much different texture after sitting overnight.

So I think it’s worth it if you can stand the wait.

Once the dough is mixed, just cover it with plastic wrap and store it in the fridge overnight.

Patience people.

Forming the Cookies

When you’re finally ready to make the cookies, just scoop out about 3.5 ounces of cookie dough. I actually weighed mine to make sure it was right, but basically it should be the size of a large golfball.

This amount of dough makes a pretty enormous cookie. You can only fit six of them on a baking sheet at a time.

When each cookie is rolled into a ball, press it into some crushed pretzels on one side. Make sure a good amount of pretzels are stuck to the cookie.

Then add each cookie to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Seriously large cookies

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for about 18 minutes. The cookies should be nicely browned on top, but still soft in the center.

These guys turned out so perfect.

Done deal.

Once they come out of the oven, let them cool on the baking sheet for five minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Serving them a bit warm is a really good idea.

I do not mess around.

Biting into one of these is a pretty intense experience. The salt from the pretzels is the perfect topping for the cookies. It really brings out the chocolate flavor in the cookies.

At the same time there’s this fantastic texture thing happening between the soft cookie and the crunchy pretzels.

This picture doesn’t really do it justice, but maybe it’ll give you an idea!

Chomp!

There’s a few tricky parts with this recipe and you could ignore them if you dare. You could not weigh or sift your flours. You could not let your dough sit for 24 hours. You could make wimpy little cookies. They would still be good.

But if you do take the time to follow some of the more annoying steps, you’ll be well-rewarded.

Pretzels. Chocolate. Cookies.

Is it the best chocolate chip cookie IN THE WORLD? I don’t know, but I definitely wouldn’t turn one down.

Cobbler is easy!

I just couldn’t escape peach week without doing a peach cobbler. Before we get into the deliciousness of this cobbler though, let’s do a bit of a recap on Peach Week:

Baked Peaches – Easy and delicious baked breakfast dish.

Summer Peach Salad - Get those veggies in. The dressing in this recipe is fantastic.

Peach Stuffed Pork Tenderloin – The most ambitious peach dish of the week.

Buttermilk Peach Ice Cream – This turned me into a huge buttermilk ice cream fan!

But yea… the week just wouldn’t be the same without a cobbler recipe. It was necessary.

White Chocolate Peach Cobbler

Yield: 9x13 Baking Dish

Prep Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

5 pounds fresh peaches, peeled and sliced
2/3 Cup sugar, divided into 1/3s
1/3 Cup brown sugar
1 lemon, zest and juice from half the lemon
2 Teaspoons vanilla
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
2 Cups all-purpose flour + 3 Tablespoons flour (for filling)
1 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder
3/4 Cups unsalted butter, cold
2/3 Cups heavy cream
Pinch of salt

White Chocolate Topping:
4 ounces white chocolate
1/2 Cup heavy cream

Directions:

1) Peel peaches by cutting an "X" in the bottom of each peach and dunking them in boiling water for 30 seconds. The skins should then easily peel off. Slice the peaches keeping the slices pretty thick.

2) Mix peaches with sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, lemon zest, lemon juice, cinnamon, and some flour. Let sit for 30 minutes or so.

3) Make topping by mixing together flour, baking powder, the pinch of salt, and sugar. Cut in cold butter with your hands for a fork until there are pea-sized balls of butter throughout. Stir in cream until evenly combined. It should be crumbly.

4) Add peach mixture to the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Top with crumbled topping.

5) Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until topping is lightly brown and peaches are bubbling.

6) Make chocolate topping by melting together the chocolate chips and cream. You can use the microwave (15 sec bursts stirring frequently) or a double boiler over steaming water.

7) Once cobbler is done, drizzle with chocolate sauce.

8) Serve warm or cold!

Prepping the Peach

If you’ve been reading peach week all this week, you’re probably sick of hearing about how to deal with peaches. Let’s make it quick.

Cut an “X” on the bottom.

Dunk them in boiling water for 30 seconds.

The skin slides off like so…

Naked peaches!

Since we’re baking these guys, keep the slices pretty big otherwise you’ll end up with a big dish of peach mush.

Keep the slices pretty big.

Combine the sliced peaches with the 1/3 cup sugar and brown sugar. Stir in the lemon juice and lemon zest along with the vanilla, cinnamon, and a few tablespoons of flour.

Let this sit for about 30 minutes so the peaches have time to release some of their liquid which will make a delicious syrup.

Yummy filling.

The Topping

The topping for this cobbler is really simple. It’s basically like a pie crust with some sugar in it. The nice part is that you don’t have to worry about rolling it out!

Just mix the flour with the baking powder, 1/3 cup of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Then add your cold butter.

Kind of like pie dough, only easier.

Just use your fingers or a fork to mash the butter into the flour mixture until it is in pea-sized pieces. Then stir in your cream. The topping should be clumpy but probably not firm enough to make a real dough out of.

Then just pour all your peaches into a 9×13 baking dish!

Millions of peaches!

Evenly distribute your topping on top of the peaches. There’s no need to cover every inch of the peaches. It gives the cobbler some character to have some peaches showing through.

Topping on top.

Bake this bad boy for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees. It’s done with the topping is lightly browned and the peaches are bubbling.

The Topping

Ok. So the white chocolate topping is pretty optional, but I think it’s a fun touch. Peaches and chocolate taste delicious together.

Can't go wrong with chocolate!

Just add the chocolate chips and cream to a bowl and either melt it slowly in the microwave (15 second bursts – stirring in between) or melt it in a double boiler over some simmering water.

Both ways work fine. Once you get the chocolate completely melted, you should have a really smooth chocolate mixture that you can then kind of drizzle over your finished cobbler.

Kind of fun!

If you serve the cobbler right away, the chocolate will be kind of gooey and melty which is delicious.

I equally like it after the cobbler cools though because the chocolate gets crispy then which adds some nice texture to the dish.

Serve this up with a big old spoon. Ice cream is optional, but always a good idea.

I opted to not do ice cream on this particular day.

Big plate of cobbler.

PHEW! Peach week has officially come to a close.

Hopefully you guys liked all the peach dishes. Which was your favorite? Leave a comment!

Easy ice cream.

Peaches and cream! One of the most classic combinations that I can think of. Well, it’s at least a classic R&B song (sound) if nothing else.

When it comes to ice cream, I’m usually a traditionalist. I like really good vanilla ice cream. Just plain with maybe a bit of cinnamon on it. Don’t mess with it too much, ya know?

But for peach week, I had to change it up a bit and my huge box of peaches was practically yelling at me: “CHURN US, DUDE!”

So churn I did. The fun part about this recipe is that there isn’t any custard base so it’s a really simple ice cream recipe. Perfect for the beginner ice cream maker.

Buttermilk Peach Ice Cream

Yield: About 6 cups

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes + freezing time

Ingredients:

2 pounds whole peaches (5-6), peeled and diced
1 Cup sugar
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
1 Teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 Tablespoon bourbon (opt.)
Pinch of salt
2 Cups heavy cream
1 Cup buttermilk

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor
Ice Cream Maker

Directions:

1) To peel peaches, cut a "X" on the bottom of each peach and dip them in boiling water for 30 seconds. Let them cool and then the skins should just peel right off.

2) Dice peaches and add them to a bowl with other ingredients except cream and buttermilk. Let macerate for at least 30 minutes, but up to one day.

3) Puree 2 cups of peach mixture and stir in with cream and buttermilk.

4) Churn cream mixture with ice cream maker.

5) Once ice cream is a soft serve consistency, stir in other peach pieces. Mix well.

6) Freeze ice cream, stirring every 30 minutes to break up ice crystals and make sure ice cream is freezing slowly. After stirring a few times, you can let it freeze solid.

Adapted from a Homesick Texan Recipe.

Dealing with Peaches

We’ve dealt with a lot of peaches this week and we aren’t done yet. What’s always fun about doing a week of recipes around one ingredient is that I completely learn that ingredient by the end of the week. I know its oddities and flavor profiles.

As far as peaches go, I can peel them, dice them, pit them, and pair them without any problem these days. Besides the fresh peaches, this recipe has some other great flavors going on as well.

No eggs needed!

When it comes to peeling peaches, the easiest way to do it is to cut an “X” on the bottom of each peach and then dunk them in boiling water for 30 seconds. When you pull the peaches out and let them cool off, you should be able to just rub off the skin. They literally just slide right off.

Pretty cool stuff.

Easy peeling.

Last minute I decided to put some bourbon in this ice cream because, hey, why not right?

Don't forget the bourbon!

Once your peaches are peeled, just cut off as much flesh as you can and dice up the peaches. Then add the peaches to a bowl with the bourbon, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Let the peaches sit and macerate in this liquid for at least 30 minutes, but you could make this part of the recipe hours before you want ice cream.

Churning the Cream

If you’ve ever made ice cream before, you’ll know that it usually involves making a custard with eggs and milk. This recipe has none of that business. It’s just cream, buttermilk, and our peaches. I was worried that the consistency would be a bit off, but it was completely fine. Maybe not quite as smooth as a custard based ice cream, but I liked it all the same.

Other stuff you'll need...

Take about two cups of your peach mixture and add it to food processor. Process it until it’s a puree. You don’t want any chunks at all at this point. You’re going for a really nice puree.

For the mix.

Stir this puree in with the cream and buttermilk and get it all churning in your ice cream maker. Personally, I’ve used the Kitchenaid attachment a few times now with pretty solid results.

Follow the instructions for your ice cream maker to make sure you let it churn long enough. Mine needed to churn for about 20 minutes before it was set up enough.

KItchen aid mixer works okay!

Finishing the Ice Cream

Once your ice cream base is a nice soft serve consistency, pour it into a large dish and stir in the other peaches and all the liquid.

This is when this recipe gets awesome!

The mix-ins!

To be honest, I thought this recipe tasted the best as a soft serve ice cream. It was perfect like this if you ask me.

But, assuming you aren’t a weirdo, you’ll want to freeze your ice cream solid. While it’s not completely necessary, I recommend taking the ice cream out of the freezer ever thirty minutes and giving it a good stir. This will just make sure that you don’t have any huge ice crystals in your ice cream. Stirring it up will help it freeze slowly and your final ice cream will have a better consistency.

After you stir it two or three times then you can just let it freeze solid.

Stirring is important.

This recipe makes a lot of ice cream, but that definitely wasn’t a problem for me.

I eat it three scoops at a time.

Good lookin' dessert.

This is the perfect ice cream for someone who wants to start making their own. There’s no custard to make or anything too tricky about it. Just mix some stuff together, churn it up, and you’ll be well-rewarded.

Has anyone tried buttermilk ice cream before? I thought it was really good!