Peanut Butter-Banana-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

So I had some overripe bananas and decided to make a banana ice cream. I found this recipe in Scoop by Ellen Brown and decided to give it a try. The original recipe didn't call for the chocolate chips, but I decided to add them since PB, bananas, and chocolate are a holy trinity of sweets. While the ice cream ended up tasting OK, I was a little disappointed with the base, which was incredibly thick--essentially too thick to churn in the canister of my ice-cream freezer. I am going to chalk it up partly to not enough volume from the bananas.

Wedding Cupcakes

One of my colleagues was approaching his wedding day, so we had a little party at work to celebrate. I made these cupcakes from Dede Wilson's Wedding Cakes You Can Make. They're white cupcakes with coconut and a lemon-curd filling. For the frosting, I made a white-chocolate buttercream. Nice recipe, and it allowed me to use some of the egg whites I've been accumulating after using egg yolks in ice cream.

Chocolate Mint Ice Cream

So I have been getting back into making ice cream. Maybe it's just a jag as a result of the onset of hot and humid weather. As part of my getting back into it, I made chocolate mint ice cream, using a recipe from Fine Cooking, which published a terrific David Lebovitz ice cream article a couple of years ago and now has a design-your-own-flavor feature on its website.

This version of chocolate mint ice cream is subtle. Fresh mint is steeped in warm cream, and the flavor is much less in your face than the usual take on this flavor. For a flavor and texture bonus, I mixed in a sleeve of Thin Mints that, sadly, had somehow gotten a little crushed.

Strawberries and Cream Ice Cream

It's not always flour and butter here. After unearthing my ice cream maker last weekend, I was motivated to make a batch or two. Since I had some fresh local strawberries, I started with this batch; the recipe is from The Ice Cream Bible by Marilyn Linton and Tanya Linton. Because of the high moisture content of the strawberry puree, this ice cream turned out more like a hybrid of ice cream and sorbet. Not at all unpleasant to consume as it had a lot of great fresh berry flavor but also makes me think that something creamier might also be nice.

Blueberry Lemon Cupcakes

I happened upon this recipe last week but didn't get a chance to try it until yesterday. I tweaked a couple of things: I didn't have three lemons to zest for the cupcake batter, but I did have one lemon and one lime. Also, I made a regular buttercream frosting and flavored it with lemon. In honor of the blog the recipe came from ("Chocolate and Chaturangas"), I will bring one of these cupcakes for the instructor when I go to yoga tonight.