Fresh from the Freezer

This flavor came about as a delicious and elegant way to use up an excessive amount of mangoes from summer. It was inspired by a recipe for mango or blueberry frozen yogurt by CozyIntentions on Reddit . Their recipe is definitely much more straightforward, but I adapted it to suit my needs with what I had in my pantry and fridge. Mini dark chocolate chips and cacao nibs add two different kinds of crunch for a fun variation of texture, and smooth, creamy, mango frozen yogurt balances out the cacao flavor. This mango cacao frozen yogurt is delicious, light, refreshing, and has a very balanced flavor. The vodka makes this recipe soft enough to scoop if leftovers are refrozen, but feel free to omit it if you know you won’t have any leftovers. By the way, this recipe was originally measured in grams, but the imperial measurements have been approximated just in case anyone needs them. I measured the mix-ins by volume.    Mango cacao frozen yogurt on top of eggfruit ice cream. I have...

It's just how it comes out of the machine. Get your mind out of the gutter...  I like to share the food I make with others in my household under one condition—I always get to have the last piece. This holds true for when I make ice cream as well. I always have to have the last scoop. This rule also holds true when it’s my birthday and I get a birthday cake. I will share with everyone as long as I get to have the last piece. So tell me why, this year, the “last slice” was a skinny, pathetic little sliver. This is the thanks I get for being generous! Next time, I am NOT sharing!!! It’s even worse this year because I actually had another reason why I wanted to save my birthday cake—I wanted to use it to make ice cream. Birthday cake ice cream was my favorite flavor as a kid, and I wanted to recreate it by blending equal parts in weight of cake and milk. I was left with less cake than I originally intended, but it actually ended up being the perfect amount. More cake would have...

  It’s mamey season. For the uninitiated, mamey sapote is a delicious fruit that hails from tropical regions like the Caribbean. It’s easier to compare the flavor of mamey to a root vegetable than it is to compare it to another fruit. It has the texture of a creamy fruit but, according to the internet, the taste of sweet potato. It looks a lot like one, too. When I tried it, I actually thought it tasted like a deep, almost bitter caramel. My family thought it tasted like banana when it was in ice cream form, and I could sort of see where they were coming from.   However you describe the flavor of mamey sapote, it’s quite sweet when ripe. It only needs a touch of sugar to maintain the sweetness typical of ice cream. I chose to use white sugar so as not to detract from its delicate flavor, but I think this fruit would also play well with brown sugar or maple syrup as a substitute. You might even be able to omit extra sugar altogether.   Anyways, if you’re lucky enough to ...

  I couldn’t find any other recipe for persimmon sherbet on the internet, so… voila! Sherbet is a bit more on the traditional side, isn’t it? Off the top of my head, I can only name a handful of flavors: orange, lime, raspberry, rainbow (which is usually a mix of the previous three), sometimes strawberry, and that just about covers it. It’s an old-fashioned treat that no one wants to disrespect by changing things up. But doesn’t sherbet deserve a little more recognition and diversity in flavors? It makes an excellent blank canvas for all fruits, with dairy rounding out the sharper edges of whatever fruit flavor it hosts. It’s also fun to invent new things, and I couldn’t find any other recipe for persimmon sherbet on the internet, so… voila!   I have heard that persimmons can be very sharp in taste when they aren’t ripened enough, but I thankfully have not experienced this yet. I got my hands on some Fuyu persimmons and waited to eat them until they were soft and ...

  Olive oil and pretzels create a mysterious yet addictive flavor that’s greater than the sum of its parts. This flavor combination is one of my favorites so far. Olive oil and pretzels aren’t strangers when it comes to desserts—think orange olive oil cake and chocolate-covered pretzels—but these star-crossed lovers aren’t often paired together for some reason. This ends now. Olive oil and pretzels create a mysterious yet addictive flavor that’s greater than the sum of its parts. It tastes a little like both ingredients, but the combination of the two also tastes like some secret third thing that’s been difficult for me to pinpoint. Whatever it is, I’m really, really into it. I’ve already made this flavor a few times now because of how fantastic it is. I had two other people try it and guess the flavor, and their guesses were nothing short of strange: white bean, onion, possibly toast, and a few others I can’t recall. The taste testers knew what weirdness I’m capable of. ...

I decided to take the inside of roasted sweet potato, mix it up with gelato ingredients plus a splash of rum, and presto! This Japanese sweet potato gelato was born. From the very first bite, I’ve been addicted to Japanese sweet potato, also called satsumaimo. There are so many confections from Japan that use Japanese sweet potato because of its gentle, chestnut-like flavor, including everything from cakes to cookies to puddings and then some. My favorite Japanese sweet potato dessert by far, however, is a baked treat that is literally just called “sweet potato.” Sorry, I know it’s confusing, but there is a dessert in Japan called “sweet potato” that is made out of the plant which is called “sweet potato” in English. To avoid too much confusion, I’m going to refer to the dessert as “suiitopoteto,” which is the Japanese pronunciation, and the tuber itself as “sweet potato.” These are suiitopoteto I made using this recipe  if you'd like to try making them.  They're bette...

  This recipe contains no fruit, but it is my forbidden fruit. When I first tried corn ice cream, it was from Adrienne Borlongan’s wonderful cookbook The World of Ice Cream , which I reviewed here . I tried a slightly modified version of her recipe and loved it. Corn ice cream is sweet and buttery. Corn ice cream feels like a secret that Southeast Asia and South America have been keeping from North America, and for good reason; almost every time I tell someone here about how delicious it is, they do not believe me. I know people like to stick to their classics, but come on. Corn ice cream is fantastic . What, did you think I was going to call it a-maize-ing? Well, I would not do that. That would be too corny. Ahem. Sorry. Honestly, with how major of a crop corn is in the U.S., I am shocked it is not more popular as a dessert flavor. Corn has quickly became one of my favorite ice cream flavors right up there with vanilla and strawberry. Corn is a trigger food that hurts my...

  This ice cream really tastes like the inside of a blueberry cheesecake. An online friend once told me that her favorite ice cream flavor is blueberry. I had doubts about how good it could be. Until this month, I had never bothered making blueberry ice cream. If I wanted to make a berry flavor, I would make something tart and zippy, like strawberry or raspberry. Maybe I’m just picky, but blueberries don’t always have a ton of flavor. The kind of blueberries I like are the kind that has good surface tension and a little bit of tartness. I like the ones that pop when chewed. Don’t give me a mealy, wrinkly, too sweet, one-note blueberry. Anyways, I was fortunate enough to get a punnet of blueberries like that from the grocery store, and I decided that blueberry cheesecake ice cream was in order. I slightly adapted this recipe from Deliciously Rushed . This recipe is not low carb, but it is still lower in sugar and higher in protein than the average storebought pint, not t...