Summer ’12 | Cookies & Cream Italian Ice

The past few months have passed in a whirl of SAT prep work, sweet sixteens, summer assignments, taking long runs and reading books. It sounds so typically teenager-ish but it was amazingly relaxing and great break from all the stress, work, and deadlines of school. And in this time, I also learned many things:

1. It’s hard to stop procrastinating. Really. I thought my procrastinating habit was because I was stressed during school, and that without any stress during the summer, I wouldn’t procrastinate on my summer assignments. That  is the worst lie I ever told myself.

2. Photographing anything frozen and prone to quick melting is hard.  Really. Originally I’d intended to do an entire ice cream series for you guys, but after spending about five minutes trying to scoop a perfect ball of ice cream, only to have it melt and slide all around the bowl… I know the trick to photographing frozen things is to work fast, but its pretty hard.

3. Italian ice is great. Its super easy and quick to make + it really cools you down on summer days. They’re also easier to photograph than ice cream, because you don’t have make it look perfect, just serve with whipped cream garnish, and that is the end of it :)

Anyways, here’s the recipe to an ice recipe that I’ve made several times over the summer :) It’s very simple, but it tastes great, and is easy to make so here you go…

note: I’m not quite sure that this dessert should be categorized as an italian ice because it does contain milk & ice cream, however, it does resemble italian ice more than anything to me, and has a similar texture…

Cookies & Cream Ice

Serves two

1 big scoop of vanilla ice cream

4 oreos cookies

1 cup of milk (whole is preferable, but 2 % is great as well) & two table spoons (keep separated)

1. In a blender blend together all of the above ingredients until smooth, then pour it into a ice cube tray, and freeze until completely solid (this should take a three hours or more depending on how cold your freezer is)

2. Remove frozen cookies&cream mixture from ice tray and place in blender and add two table spoons of milk into the blender, and then blend the mixture until smooth :)

Keep cool & enjoy :)

Deepshikha :)

Chocolaty & Frozen

As I told you in my previous post it’s been crazily hot out, and so I’ve been living off of ice tea. And now for some reason I have a sorta craving for cold and chocolaty. That and my sister wants a chocolate milk shake(although to her, any thing cold and chocolaty happens to qualify as a milkshake:D).

And so I made hot chocolate, poured it into my blender full of ice and it came out a hot chocolate slushy thingy. Quite delicious really :D

Annnnddd, making these hot chocolate slushy things also gave me an excuse to use the super tall glasses that have been hanging out at the top of my cabinets gathering dust for the past few years :). I really love using fancy glasses to put stuff in. To me, you can stick anything in a martini glass and make it look cool. Well, anything that doesn’t have true form(things that do have a true form:cake, flan, tiramisu|things without a true form: pudding, slushy things, ice cream| get the idea?). 

These tall glasses work nicely for certain things too, although I recommend sticking with drinks for these ’cause it’s not too fun spending ten minutes to get that last spoon of pudding or ice cream in there.

And of course, I also think everything in a glass looks fancy with a bit of something on the rim(i.e. a lemon, a twirly lemon peel thing, a fancy little umbrella thing(I was obsessed with those as a kid), an orange even, etc.)

Ahh the joy of things frozen and chocolaty.

By the way, if you were curious about the hot chocolate recipe i use:

some milk(any type is good)

some sugar

some semi sweet chocolate

some half and half

And I pretty much just melt the chocolate into the milk and add a teaspoon of sugar and a bit of evaporated milk, stir it up, taste it, if it tastes bitter i add a teaspoon more, if it’s not creamy enough I add in half and half, and if it’s not chocolaty enough….you know

As for the frozen bit:

Cool the hot chocolate!

So now look at how much hot chocolate you’ve made. You want triple the amount of ice(you don’t have to be exact). So now take the ice you have, and put it into a blender, and pour in the hot chocolate, and leave it for a bit(you know how when you lick a pole outside when it’s deep winter, and your tongue gets stuck? It’s because the thin layer of spit on you tongue got frozen by the pole because it’s so cold. Same thing with leaving the cooled hot chocolate on the ice. It’ll spread out all over the pieces of ice, and there’ll be a thin layer which will freeze up, which helps). And now blend the mixture, until it looks and feels like a slushy!

I know it’s not very accurate, but I never really measure things when I make drinks and things. That and you should be able to modify this to your tastes. You don’t like creamy? Kick out the half and half. Now you think this seriously needs a bit of cream, because it just needs it?

I personally like it light but sweet. So I use 2% milk and use only approximately a teaspoon of half and half, and approximately two or three teaspoons of sugar.

It’s allll up to you.

~D.D.