2 Ingredient Watermelon Sherbet

Sometimes you buy an entire watermelon for just 2 people and the watermelon is not so great and you just don't know what to do with a fridge filled with bowls of this not so great watermelon.  And so I give you watermelon sherbet!

Watermelon Sherbet
From Five Heart Home

Ingredients
3 cups watermelon, cut up and frozen
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

1. Pulse watermelon and yogurt in a food processor until smooth. Serve immediately or put in a container in the freezer for later.

*Note: I added a few dashes of lime juice and doubled the recipe which you are definitely going to want to do.

I added some chocolate chips so I could pretend I was eating this latest creation from Dominique Ansel.

This recipe is just too easy not to try.  Also, it really is summer time dessert perfection.

Double Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cookies

So I came upon these awesome pumpkin spice chips by Tollhouse during pumpkin mania at the supermarket.

Before we go any further can I just comment on the fact that pumpkin madness began before fall started and the supermarket has already deemed the season over before the end of October! What is this nonsense!? Pumpkin flavors have a least another month to go in my meal rotation.  I have a feeling no one is starting their Christmas baking yet, despite the stores encouragement.

Double Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Ingredients
1 package Betty Crocker chocolate chunk cookie mix
1 cup pumpkin spice chips
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
2 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 375.  Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Drop dough by the tablespoon-ful onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes.  Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes before removing.

Here is a little bonus idea for you crazy kids out there: take some pumpkin gelato and sandwich it between 2 cookies!

Hellooooo fall chip-wich! 

Lemon Raspberry Chess Pie Ice Cream

Congratulations to the winner of my first contest!

Lemon raspberry chess pie ice cream can now make its way into all of your homes.

Let me just take a moment to thank you all for entering. It was so much fun and extremely difficult to make a final decision.

An additional nod to the runners up for the Elvis inspired and raspberry white chocolate cheesecake flavors.  They definitely need a place in my freezer sometime soon.

Lemon Raspberry Chess Pie Ice Cream

Ingredients

2 cups whipping cream

1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup raspberry jam

1/2 cup lemon curd

1 pie crust

2 tbsp sugar

vegetable oil or butter spray

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Spray pie crust with butter or vegetable oil.  Sprinkle with sugar and bake until crust is browned.  Let cool while you whip up the ice cream.

2. Whip cream until it becomes stiff, 1-2 minutes. Fold in condensed milk. Add in the lemon curd and raspberry jam in little dollops, like 1/2 teaspoon amounts to ensure it gets mixed throughout.

3. Crumble up the pie crust and add that to the ice cream.

4. Freeze for 6 hours, then enjoy!

I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did!!

Ice Cream Flavor Contest

I'm going to try my hand here at my first ever contest!

I'm super psyched about this because well... ice cream + creativity + prizes = fun!

Here's how it's going to work:

Step 1. Spend all night long tossing and turning over your brilliant flavor combination

Step 2. Submit your idea in the comments section of this post by August 26th.

Step 3. Anxiously await the results!

One first place winner will receive first choice of cookbook along with a post dedicated to your winning flavor.
Two runners up will receive a cookbook.

Yay prizes!!

Below are some delicious ice cream desserts I've made over the years. Enjoy!

Homemade Chipwiches

2 Ingredient No Churn Ice Cream

Baked Alaska

5 Layer Ice Cream Cake

2 Ingredient Ice Cream Cake

I look forward to seeing your ideas!

 Good luck everyone!

Ice Cream Cake

Before we get down to the business of the cake, I just wanted to let you all know a little something amazing.

I am the proud owner of a KitchenAid stand mixer!  It's pretty darn exciting so I took some glamour shots for you. It comes with a paddle attachment guys!  Like the real cooking shows use all the time!

Ok, I'm done making a stink over that...moving right along...

This is not a frozen cake.  This is a cake made with ice cream... and cake mix.

Let me break that down for you because I know calling this an ice cream cake is a little confusing.

You take the ice cream and melt it down. Then you mix it with some eggs and cake mix.

Make sense now?

Melted Ice Cream Cake
From Cookies and Cups

Ingredients
1 box cake mix
2 cups ice cream, I used chocolate chip cookie dough
3 eggs

1. Measure out 2 cups of ice cream in a mixing bowl and set aside, allowing the ice cream to melt.
2. Preheat oven to 350.  Once ice cream is completely melted, mix in cake mix and 3 eggs.  Beat 2 minutes on medium speed.
3. Baking times will vary according to the pan you use.

I threw in some sprinkles and glazed my cake with some vanilla frosting that was microwaved for a few seconds.

I was really really excited about this cake and I'll say in the end it was a let down.  It tasted fine, but it tasted just like regular cake.  Maybe if I used a different flavor ice cream the results would have been different.  I was a bit disappointed in the under-whelming results.

5 Layer Ice Cream Cake

This idea came from a lovely Miss Martha Stewart.  The recipe can be found here, but really there is not recipe to follow.  Just a few steps and maybe 5 to ten minutes and you'll be on your way to a dazzling dessert.

Seriously, it's crazy simple.  I bought a pound cake, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, and raspberry gelato.

Step 1: Cut pound cake.  Martha cut hers into 4 slices, I cut mine into 3.  Four would probably look a little more special so you might want to go with that.

Step 2:  Put pound cake into a plastic wrap lined loaf pan.

Step 3: Spread on gelato.

Step 4: Add more pound cake and ice cream layer.

Step 5: Top with final pound cake slice, wrap up, and freeze.

Step 6: Eat beautiful cake topped with whipped cream and caramel sauce.

That's it! So easy! And really very attractive if you ask me.

Baked Alaska!

In case you didn't know, although I'd be amazed if you didn't, I am going to Alaska. Very soon.  I've been talking about it, thinking about it, planning it, obsessing over it, boring everyone to death about it since September.  Now that the trip is finally within reach I decided to celebrate with some baked Alaska, in cupcake form!!

Step 1 is to bake a cake.  I chose to just make a box mix chocolate cake. Easy peasy.  Try not to fill the cupcakes up too high to have room for the ice cream.  Or of you do fill them up too high, mush them down like I did. Either way it works!  I made 12 cupcakes, the rest of the batter I used to make a round cake.  This round cake was dubbed "hand cake" so you can eat it with your bare hands while standing at the counter.

But I digress.  After the cake has cooled and the ice cream has softened (both can happen at the same time, hooray!) plop a little scoop of ice cream on your cupcakes.  I used strawberry ice cream and a cookie scoop to portion it into the cupcakes and smushed it down to make a flat layer. This goes into the freezer to harden.

The final layer is the meringue, 2 eggs whites, some sugar, some vanilla.  Some recipes call for cream of tartar, but I didn't find it integral.

This went into a 450 degree oven for about 3 minutes and came out like this....

And now for the final unveiling....

Ta-da!!  The ice cream on the perimeter gets a bit melty, but the center stays nice and cold.

Baked Alaska cupcakes were a delicious and dazzling way to get myself pumped up for my cruise.

Off to Alaska! See you all when I get back!

Wonder what I'll be eating.....

Birthday Cake Ice Cream!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhh lawd this ice cream was such an exciting creation.

I followed this crazy easy recipe from cookies and cups, just heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk. How much easier does that get?  What makes it even better is that it doesn't require and ice cream maker.

There's your 2 ingredients for the ice cream base.  All you need next are some add-ins of your choice.

For my add-ins I took some cake I had laying around in the freezer and some left-over frosting that was in the refrigerator.

Cake crumbling is not a neat task!

About six hours later and you've got some crazy delicious ice cream awaiting you.

What a Weekend!

So I had a pretty serious weekend: major progress on my 1,000 piece Starry Night puzzle, brunch, new glasses, Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, shopping in SoHo, beers at the Craftsman.

Cannot wait to get lenses in these babies!

American Glob: vanilla ice cream, pretzels, sea salt, chocolate dip.

Then came Sunday where I had a whole list of this that I did not want to get done.  So I thought I would cook instead of running errands!

I decided to make that roasted garlic ricotta pasta salad again, but with some twists.

I mixed pesto into the ricotta mixture, and put arugula and tomatoes into the mix.

We also slow cooked some pork, with barbecue sauce, onions, garlic, salt and pepper.  I made a simple oil and vinegar cole slaw to go atop the pulled pork sandwiches. 

Annnnd now I can relax and catch up on season 10 of Project Runway.