Every summer my dad’s family gets together on the Delaware shore. I am always of course most excited to see all my family that I love so much. Followed by that, however, is having the tasty bites that I can only get down on the shore and associate with my many summers spent there. I read somewhere that food memories are some of your strongest memories. I read it, so it must be true.

I could fill up multiple months of blog posts with my family summer vacation food memories. Among the few standouts include eating dinner on the beach, my cousin and I obsessing over Dippin’ Dots, digging into a big cup of salty Thrasher’s french fries, waiting in huge lines for some Candy Kitchen Fudge, crunching away on a few precious pieces of Martin’s fried chicken, wondering how the tub of Fisher’s caramel popcorn is already so low, tons of cousins sharing the few fresh crabs we caught coated with Old Bay seasoning, and of course ordering midday Dairy Queen treats. Ok, I guess that was a bit more than a few, but I have difficulty controlling my food excitement sometimes all the time.

However, I saved one of the best for last:  Kohr Bros Creamsicle Frozen Custard in a cake cone. There is nothing more refreshing than an ice cream at the beach and this orange and vanilla swirl custard is creamy and light. Frozen custard differs from ice cream in that it contains a higher egg yolk percentage leading to its creamier texture.

Now this is my favorite homemade ice cream I have made. Although I’m sure my strong associations with it make it taste just that much sweeter. What are your favorite family vacation food memories?

Orange-Vanilla Frozen Custard

 

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Yield: 1 quart

Ingredients

• 1½ cups whole milk
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1½ cups heavy cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ⅔ cup frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
• 4 teaspoons grated orange zest

Directions

1. Place a fine mesh sieve over a large bowl and set aside.
2. In a small bowl whisk together ½ cup of the milk and cornstarch until smooth.
3. In a medium saucepan whisk together the eggs, sugar and salt. Once combined whisk in the cornstarch mixture and the remaining cup of milk. Whisk until smooth. Place the saucepan over low heat and cook the mixture while stirring until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 8 minutes. Make sure the mixture never reaches a boil. Remove from the heat and pour through the fine mesh strainer into the large bowl.
4. Place the large bowl in an ice bath. Slowly add the cream and continue to stir while sitting in the ice bath until cool.
5. Once cool, remove from the ice bath, stir in the vanilla, orange juice concentrate and orange zest, then cover and chill in the fridge until cold.
6. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

3.2.1311

Lauren Uncategorized 2 Comments

Late last summer a bakery a couple blocks away from my apartment closed. I had recently discovered it and quickly became addicted to its treats. I think its closure was due to the universe saving me from gaining 50 bajillion pounds, although technically, they were just unable to renew their lease.

One of my favorite treats of theirs was their half moon cookies. Monstrous in size with a light cakey texture and the perfect amount of chocolate and vanilla icing.

Shortly after their closing I was craving these delightful cookies and realized that Matt’s half birthday was coming up. I had never done anything for Matt’s half birthday before, but thought it would be a fun surprise. Half moon cookies for a half birthday, what could be better than that?

I was a little intimidated about the icing portion since my patience for decoration is minimal, but they were actually very easy to frost. And even better to eat of course. With just a hint of lemon in the cookies themselves I must admit that I enjoyed these even more than their counterparts from the closed bakery. So take that universe!

To get true white icing for your half moon cookies be sure to use clear vanilla extract. You can buy it here, in your regular grocery store or in a large craft store chain, such as A.C. Moore.

Half Moon Cookies

 

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Yield: 22 cookies

Ingredients

for the cookies

• 1½ cups sugar
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1½ teaspoons salt
• ⅛ teaspoon lemon extract
• 3 large eggs
• 4½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk (not non-fat)

for the vanilla icing

• 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons hot water
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• ½ teaspoon clear vanilla extract

for the chocolate icing

• 1½ cups powdered sugar
• 2½ tablespoons hot water
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted

Directions

for the cookies

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Combine the sugar, butter, baking powder, vanilla extract, salt and lemon extract with the paddle attachment of a stand mixer.
3. Add the eggs to the sugar mixture one at a time, beating after adding each egg until combined.
4. Gently stir in 1 cup of the flour followed by ¼ cup of the milk. Continue alternating carefully stirring in 1 cup of flour and ¼ cup of milk, ending with the last ½ cup of flour.
5. Drop the dough ¼ cup at a time onto the prepared baking sheets. Wet the bottom of the measuring cup (so it doesn’t stick) and press onto the dough to flatten and spread it into a 3” diameter circle. Try to make sure the circle of dough is an evenly flattened. Leave 2” to 2½” between each cookie because they will spread.
6. Bake for 10-11 minutes and cool them on the pan to give them time to fully set before moving them to a cooling rack

for the vanilla icing

1. Whisk together the powdered sugar, hot water, corn syrup and vanilla extract.
2. Once the cookies are completely cooled, use a butter knife or icing spatula to carefully spread the vanilla icing over half of each cookie. It is okay if you ice them a little more than half because you will be adding the chocolate icing.

for the chocolate icing

1. Whisk together the powdered sugar, hot water, corn syrup and vanilla extract. Add the melted chocolate and stir until smooth and well combined.
2. Once the vanilla icing has set on the cookies carefully spread the chocolate icing on the other half. Let the cookies rest on the cooling racks until the icing has set.

Notes

*If you don’t want to purchase clear vanilla extract you can use regular vanilla extract, but your vanilla icing won’t be white.
*Store at room temperature

3.2.1311

Lauren Uncategorized 2 Comments

Tuesday’s browned butter peach recipe had me inspired to keep experimenting with peaches. I had all these browned butter peaches and thought the only way I could improve upon them was to turn them into ice cream. So I did.

My favorite ice cream cookbook has a peach ice cream recipe, but I’m all about kicking it up a notch. Instead of fresh peaches I decided to use my browned butter peaches to give the ice cream base a richer depth of flavor.

I then decided that browned butter peach ice cream was too simple and was calling for a change of texture. That’s where the graham cracker crumble comes into play. This ice cream tastes like a peach crisp dessert in ice cream form.

I guess the title of Peach Crisp Ice Cream would have been a lot more concise, but I like to be descriptive. I also didn’t want to deceive people because when you think of a crisp dessert you could be thinking about one of two different toppings. There is the rolled oat topping, that I of course am not a fan of with my new oat allergy. Then there is the brown sugar crumble topping. I’m not sure which is more traditional, but this ice cream incorporates the later.

Matt has proclaimed this browned butter peach ice cream with a graham cracker crumble as his favorite homemade ice cream. Maybe it will become your favorite, too!

Browned Butter Peach Ice Cream with a Graham Cracker Crumble

 

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Yield: 1 quart

Ingredients

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 large peaches, peeled and sliced
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup sour cream
• 1 cup heavy cream
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 sleeve of graham crackers, about 6 ounces, crushed to fine crumbs
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Begin in the process of browning the peaches by melting the butter over medium heat in a medium skillet. Swirl the butter until golden brown and aromatic, about 5 minutes. Add the peach slices and cook until soft, about 8-10 minutes. Make sure to turn stir and flip the peaches over. Add the sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves. Remove the peaches with a slotted spoon and let cool to room temperature.
2. Add the peaches, sour cream, heavy cream, vanilla and lemon juice to a food processor or blender and puree until mostly smooth.
3. Completely chill the mixture in the refrigerator. While the mixture is chilling make the crumble. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and line a baking sheet with foil. Mix together the graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, sugar and salt until crumbs are formed. Spread the crumbs on the baking sheet then bake until light golden brown, about 10 minutes. Let cool completely.
4. Once the ice cream mixture is chilled freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Layer the ice cream and the graham cracker crumble and freeze before serving.

3.2.1311

Lauren Uncategorized 0 Comments

I eat Greek yogurt almost every day for breakfast, but sometimes on the weekends when I have a little more time I like to spice up my yogurt. Unfortunately since I discovered I’m allergic to oats I’ve had to forgo granola, which leaves me mostly with fruit toppings. Blueberries, strawberries and blackberries are all tasty options, but a few months ago I decided to be adventurous.

Peaches are one of those recently discovered foods of mine. This probably isn’t shocking if you have read my earlier posts on Lemon & Mocha. I grew up eating nectarines, but peaches and plums alluded me until several years ago. Same old story: I had never thought to try it, but then someone gave me a piece. It was delicious and I couldn’t believe I had gone all these years without it in my food repertoire, etc. etc. etc.

Now that peaches are part of my life I am continuously looking to make up for lost time by cooking with peaches in as many ways as possible. Grilled? Delightful. In a salad? Yes please. With chicken? No thank you, but at least I tried it. In a cake? Scrumptious. One variation I hadn’t tried was dessert peaches by themselves. This quickly led to browned butter peaches. I had seen it on menus before and since I am very familiar with browning butter from my Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies I thought I would give it a shot.

I browned some butter by swirling it in a skillet over low heat until it was golden and smelled nutty. I then added some slices of cut and peeled peaches and let them cook in the browned butter until soft. I took one bite and instantly knew this was the most delicious version of peaches I’ve ever had. I quickly spooned some over vanilla yogurt and for a second time that morning I knew that this was the most delicious way to eat peaches I’ve ever had. Eat these browned butter peaches by themselves, over yogurt, angel food cake, ice cream, french toast, raspberry cobbler, oatmeal, whipped cream, pancakes…

Browned Butter Peaches

 

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Yield: 6-8 servings

Ingredients

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 4 large peaches, pitted, peeled and sliced

Directions

1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a medium skillet. Swirl the butter until golden brown and aromatic, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the brown sugar and stir until combined.
3. Add the peach slices and cook until soft, about 8-10 minutes. Make sure to turn stir and flip the peaches over.

Notes

If serving over yogurt let cool until slightly, about 15 minutes.

3.2.1311

Lauren Uncategorized 1 Comment

I don’t have very many Fourth of July food traditions, but there was one dessert my grandma and I used to make every year: the quintessential flag cake.

I’m sure most of you know the cake I am talking about as I’m sure it has appeared on almost every Fourth of July spread at some point in time. Vanilla sheet cake, vanilla frosting, cut strawberries, or raspberries, laid across to create the stripes in the American flag, 50 blueberries placed in the upper left corner to mimic the flag’s stars.

It is a delightful classic, but I decided this classic needed a major makeover. As much as I love the original, oftentimes the red from the strawberries bleeds into the vanilla frosting if decorated ahead of time and who wants to be laying out lines of strawberries in the kitchen while everyone else is outside enjoying the barbecue.

Also, I am all about multi purposing and the flag cake is not really an enjoy-it-all-summer-long kind of treat. When I was looking through an old issue of the Food Network magazine I came across the perfect solution: this patriotic berry trifle.

Cubes of moist angel food cake are layered with fluffy homemade whipped cream and fresh sweet berries to create a delicious, fuss-free, make-ahead, presentation-worthy dessert. Now that’s a quadruple win right there!

I must admit that I had a serious addiction to this dessert and may have eaten three servings in one sitting… I’ll never tell!

Perfect for your Fourth of July party, Labor Day potluck and just-because-it’s-a-nice-day-out barbecue.

Summer Berry Trifle

 

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Yield: 8-10 servings

Ingredients

• ¾ cup sugar, divided
• ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
• ¼ teaspoon almond extract
• 1 pre-made angel food cake, cut into 1" slices
• 8 ounces reduced fat cream cheese, at room temperature
• 16 ounces fat free Cool Whip
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, to taste
• 2 pints blueberries, washed and stems removed
• 2 pints strawberries, washed, hulled and thinly sliced

Directions

1. Over medium-high heat in a small saucepan heat ¼ cup of the sugar and ¼ cup of the lemon juice. Stir frequently while heating until the sugar dissolves. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the almond extract.
2. Lay the angel food cake slices face down and brush with the syrup. Flip over and brush the other side of the cake slices. Cut into 1" cubes.
3. Beat the remaining ½ cup of sugar and the cream cheese on medium speed with a mixer until fluffy. Add the Cool Whip and very lightly beat until smooth. Stir in the tablespoon of lemon juice, to taste.
4. Using a 13 cup trifle bowl place half the cake cubes in an even layer on the bottom. Add a layer of ⅓ of the blueberries, followed by half the cream mixture. Layer with half of the sliced strawberries, followed by the remaining cake. Then layer ⅓ of the blueberries, followed by the remaining cream mixture.
5. Top with a layer of strawberries overlapping around the edge of the bowl. Place the remaining ⅓ of blueberries on the top in the center. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.

Notes

For easiest preparation, cut angel food cake with a serrated knife in a slow sawing motion.

3.2.1263

Lauren Uncategorized 6 Comments