Coconut Ginger

Rating: ****
Nickname: "Flying Down to Rio"

For the coconut base, I decided to take Ben & Jerry's sweet cream base #1 and then roughly substitute coconut milk for the cream. ("Roughly," because a 14-oz can of coconut milk is about 1 2/3 cups, and then I just used milk to finish off the necessary 3 cups of "dairy.")

In contrast, I noticed later that B&J actually have a coconut recipe in the book, but they make the whole sweet cream base plus the coconut milk. I assume that'd make it a bit less strongly coconuty and less sweet. But I like how this version turned out.

The coconut flakes add texture, but aren't necessary for flavor. For ginger, we used uncrystalized Buderim ginger, diced up tiny. (If they're too big, they're too chewy.)

Here's the recipe:

2 eggs
3/4 c. sugar
1 14-oz can of coconut milk
1 1/3 c. milk
1/4 c. coconut flakes
1/4 c. (generous) diced ginger

Whisk the first four ingredients together and put in the ice cream maker. Add the last two towards the end, when it's thickening up.

[About the nickname: "Flying Down to Rio" was the first Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers film, so it had ginger in it, and I assume there are coconuts grown in Rio de Janeiro. Best I could do on this one, anyway. :-) ]

Persimmon and Pepper

Rating: ***
Nickname: "Persimmon to Drool"

This recipe from Epicurious uses crushed black pepper, boiled up in some sugar water. Along with a bunch of fresh persimmons, there's only about a cup of actual cream. I was worried it would turn out a bit icy, but it's actually okay. It has a slightly more gooey-fruity texture to it than regular ice cream, though. I think the peppery bits are kind of fun, but they can be a bit strong if you get too much at once.

We made this recipe mostly as written, but with an extra 1/4 c. of sugar because it didn't seem very sweet, and an extra persimmon just for the heck of it. Most fruit recipes I've done involve mashing the fruit up with some extra sugar first, but this one didn't.

Anyway, it was good, though I'm also tempted to just do a regular, sweet ice cream with persimmons. Maybe with a bit of cinnamon or nutmeg or something.

Cinnamon

Rating: ****

When I told my uncle Greg I liked cinnamon ice cream, he recommended the recipe in The Perfect Scoop, so I went ahead and used that unaltered. You don't put any ground cinnamon in it, but just steep 10 cinnamon sticks in the milk for an hour. That has the effect not only of making it more expensive, but also leaving it looking like vanilla, rather than cinnamon-colored. But it definitely tastes cinnamony, if you don't look at it too much. I'd be tempted to put in ground cinnamon as well, just to change the color. :-)

I liked it, but it didn't blow me away enough to give it five stars. It may partly be that I'm not preferring the custard style ice creams these days, though. But if you like cinnamon (and I do), it's definitely worth it.

(Made for Princess Bride movie night with Lacey and Cathy.)

Chocolate Ginger

Rating: ****
Ben's chocolate recipe, from the Ben & Jerry's book, pg. 44
+ 1 tbsp of powdered ginger
Diced some candied ginger (~1/4 c.) to add at end.
Didn't seem at first like it would be enough powdered ginger, but it turned out to be plenty.
Used candied ginger that wasn't coated in sugar already. Diced very tiny. Seemed chewier than I remembered.
Texture was a little grainy. Maybe chocolate + milk phase needed to be heated longer? Or maybe it was how the powdered ginger reacted to it?
(This was Rowyn's birthday ice cream.)

Chai

Final Rating: *****
Nickname: Please Chai to Control Yourself

I made this on Rowyn's moving day, as an afternoon reward for everyone who helped shift furniture and whatnot. The full story of both iterations can be found here: A Tale of Two Ice Creams.

I started with this Elise.com recipe, but I was a bit random on spices. Put in cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, cloves, then numerous shakes of pre-made "chai spice."

Version 1 ***:
Followed above recipe, but with 4 egg yolks instead of 6. Still too eggy. Very thick and custardy, which didn't seem appropriate for the flavor.

Version 2 *****:
Simplified and left out eggs entirely. Steeped spices then tea in 2c regular cream and 1c milk. Strained and stirred in sugar. Chilled and froze.
This comes out much lighter and more melt-in-your-mouthier, and therefore all around better. Do this again for other tea-related recipes.

They're both yummy, though. This was my mom's favorite flavor, and prompted a quote from Rowyn's mom along the lines of "this is the sort of thing that makes you believe in heaven."

Ginger

Rating: ****
Regular vanilla base (e.g. from Ben & Jerry's), no vanilla bean.
Grated in one little chunk of fresh ginger, added about a 1/2 tbsp of powdered ginger.
Diced some candied ginger and added at end.
Seems to get more gingery after it's frozen.
Also, seemed to get kind of grainy, maybe from sugar off of candied ginger? And from the chunks of fresh ginger?
Next time: skip fresh ginger, use more powdered, see if can get candied ginger w/out extra sugar on it. It's delicious but really wants to be smoother.

Spicy Chocolate

Rating: ****
Ben's chocolate recipe from Ben & Jerry's ice cream book, page 44.
Generous dash of cinnamon.
Nearly half a jar of McCormick's Mexican chili powder.
Note: Tastes much spicier once frozen, so don't over do it.
Cut spicy in half next time, maybe try straight cayenne pepper.

I also wrote about this in another post: Chocolate That Makes You Pay Attention:

One of the first things I learned about ice cream from Antonia was that you have to mix it up sweeter than you think because you taste the sweetness less once it's frozen. And the first thing I learned from this experiment was that this rule does not apparently apply to spiciness.

I started off with just tiny pinches of chili powder in the chocolate mix (from Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Book) but could hardly taste it. So I kept adding more... and more... and more.... And maybe somewhere in here we also got some sort of adaption factor to make me taste it less, which would only complicate things. Anyway, I finally decided it would probably be okay, so I went ahead and put it all in the ice cream machine. And once it was frozen it was hot! This is not ice cream to eat lightly. I'd probably halve the chili powder if I were to make this again. If I had measured it in the first place.

Good, though!

Cinnamon Cardamom

Rating: *****
This was the first flavor I made with my own ice cream maker. It uses the Muhallabia recipe from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook, page 435. (Thanks to Mama Cass for the book!) It's just a custard base with 1/2 t. each of cinnamon and cardamom, and it's excellent.