London Fog Ice Cream

The Earl Grey tea with the hint of vanilla combined with the creaminess of the ice cream makes this London Fog ice cream hard to resist! 

Anyone else excited for the Royal Wedding this weekend? Personally, I cannot wait to see Meghan's dress! I love her style, and she is becoming such a style icon. I'll bet her dress is fabulous and will have an impact on wedding fashion for years to come. In honour of the Royal Wedding,  I made this delicious London Fog ice cream. 

I am a tea person. My shelves are filled with various varieties. From oolongs to matcha, I love them all but I always start my day with a cup of earl grey. I love a London Fog latte. The hint of vanilla with the bergamot in the tea and the creaminess of the milk - delish! One of my favourite little ice cream shops in town makes the most delicious London Fog ice cream and with their made in house cinnamon waffle cones it is heavenly! As soon as I opened my ice cream maker for Christmas, I knew that I wanted to recreate their London Fog ice cream at home. 

Ice cream always takes way longer to make then I expect. I alway forget about the multiple cooling times required to chill the custard and the ice cream. The ice cream bowl for your ice cream maker also has to chill for 12-15 hours! So while the active time for making ice cream isn't much, there is a lot of waiting around and anticipation for the finished product. Let me assure you that its worth it! Since the ice cream bowl for the mixer has to chill overnight, I decided to cold steep my earl grey in the milk overnight to extract the most flavour from the tea. By cold steeping, the tea maintains its flavour and doesn't get bitter over time. The finished ice cream has just enough Earl Grey flavour that you can identify the type of ice cream you are eating but it's not overpowering and the light vanilla flavour comes through as well. 

London Fog Ice Cream

Note: Place your ice cream maker bowl in the freezer the night before you plan to make the ice cream. The ice cream custard requires 4 hours of cooling before churring and an additional four hours in the freezer after its been churrned.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ c milk

• 6 tbsp loose leaf earl grey tea

• 4 large egg yolks

• ⅔ c sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 ½ c heavy cream

Directions:

The night before place your ice cream maker bowl in the freezer to chill. Combine cold milk and earl grey tea leaves. Allow to steep in the fridge overnight. Strain tea leaves before use.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until pale. The mixture will be a bright yellow at first but should pale with mixing.

In a medium saucepan, over low to medium heat, heat the tea infused milk and vanilla until lightly simmering, remove from heat.  To temper the eggs, ladle about half of the milk mixture into the egg mixture. Whisking constantly to avoid scrambling the eggs. Slowly pour the tempered egg mixture into the saucepan with the remaining milk mixture. Return the mixture to the heat, and stir slowly but consistently until the mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat. Stir in cream.  Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

Once chilled completely, transfer to ice cream maker and churn ice cream according to the directions of your ice cream maker. It should take around 20 minutes to churn your ice cream and will be finished when the ice cream has a soft serve consistency. Once churned, transfer ice cream to a freezer container. Freeze until solid (approx. 4 hours).

Tulip Sugar Cookie Bouquet Tutorial

A quick and simple sugar cookie decorating tutorial to learn how to make a water colour tulip sugar cookie bouquet.

This is a fun and simple spring sugar cookie tutorial. It would make the perfect Mother's Day gift! It would also be appropriate for spring birthdays, Easter or a fun house warming present! Or you know just because! I love that the presentation makes it look like a luxurious bouquet of tulips. I like that with this method you do not have to add sticks to your cookies, which saves time. I decided to use the water colour technique to paint my cookies rather than tint the icing and flood the cookies one solid colour.  I think that by using the gel food colouring like paint it adds dimension to the cookies and gives them a more realistic look. This decorating technique is quick, simple and perfect for beginners. 

Tips for making a Tulip Sugar Cookie Bouquet 

• Make sure your royal icing is a good flooding consistency. You will want it to be thin enough to flood your cookies, but not too thin that it runs everywhere! I like to use a 10 second icing for these cookies. That means that when I run an knife through my bowl royal icing it takes around 10 seconds for the line to disappear. The faster the line disappears the thinner the icing.

• Flood your tulip cookies in three parts, allowing the icing to dry or set up for 15-20 minutes in between each part. This will give the cookie dimension. First flood the left petal, allowing the icing to dry slightly before flooding the right. Finally flood the middle petal and the stem.

• Make sure your cookie are completely dry before painting them with the gel colours. I like to allow my cookies to dry over night. Even if the cookies look dry and are dry to the touch, the added moisture from the water/alcohol can cause cracks or dents in your cookie.

• When painting sugar cookies I use Wilton brand gel colours, a variety of small clean food only paint brushes that I purchased from my local craft store and either water or some form of clear alcohol (such as white rum or vodka).

• Royal icing can only take so much moisture before it starts to crumble and create holes or bubbles within the frosting. This makes it difficult to layer your colour or build up a design on the cookie. I find that using a clear alcohol typically produces better results then using water as it evaporates faster from the cookie.

• Use paper towel or an extra flooded cookie to test out your colour blends before painting your actual cookies

• For more tips on decorating with Royal Icing - check out this post.

 

Tulip Sugar Cookie Bouquet Tutorial

You'll Need 

2-3 dozen sugar cookies in tulip and leaf shapes 

1 recipe of royal icing

12 inch pipping bag 

coupler 

Small Round Pipping Tip (like Wilton 3)

Paint pallet (or plate)

Gel Colours ( I used Wilton Pink, Christmas Red, Peach, Leaf Green, Yellow and Orange)

water or clear alcohol 

paint brush (only used for food) 

Brown Kraft Paper or Burlap 

Ribbon 

Directions

With your royal icing at a flood consistency (around 10 second icing), flood your tulip cookies in three parts, allowing the icing to dry or set up for 15-20 minutes in between each part. This will give the cookie dimension.  First flood the left petal, allowing the icing to dry slightly before flooding the right. Finally flood the middle petal and the stem. Outline and flood the leaves.

Allow the cookies to dry completely before moving onto the next step. 

Add your gel colours to your pallet. Using your paint brush and the water or alcohol, thin and blend your gel colours as you would water colour paints, until you reach your desired shades. 

Paint your tulip and leaf cookies as desired. Allow the paint to dry completely before packaging cookies into bouquets.

Lemon Rosemary Meringue Cake

A delicious, savoury twist on a classic dessert. This Lemon Rosemary Meringue Cake is a winning combination.

Last week we went for dinner at a new restaurant in town that I have been super excited to try. They are known for their small sharing plates and delicious cocktails - two of my favourite things. The meal was delicious - it started with a cheese board and ended with a lemon rosemary dessert that came in a jar. As soon as I had my first bite of dessert, I knew that I wanted to recreate something similar. I decided to use the same flavours - the lemon, the rosemary and a meringue but change up the actual dessert and create a cake instead. 

I love the combination of the lemon with the rosemary. The rosemary brings a fresh unexpected twist to these otherwise classic flavours. I think its fun to use something typically savoury and turn it into a dessert. It adds a level of complexity to the flavours. 

We have to talk about the lemon curd filling. I considered making it its own post because its just that good. I could go on and on and on about it. But I will keep it short. Make it. Put it on everything (or eat it with a spoon). You can thank me later.  It has the perfect amount of sweetness to balance out the tart of the lemon and the egg yolks give it a beautiful yellow hue. Not only is it delicious but helps to keep this cake super moist.   

The meringue frosting is quick and easy to make. It whips up to a beautiful glossy shine and browns up nicely under a boiler (or you can use a kitchen torch - which I really need to invest in!). To brown the top of my cake using the oven, I preheated my oven to the broiler setting. I filled, stacked and frosted the cake on a piece of parchment paper and transferred the cake to a clean baking tray. The meringue will brown quickly in the oven, so be sure to keep a close eye on it! It will only take a minute or two for the meringue to brown.

Lemon Rosemary Meringue Cake

Makes: One 6 inch cake

For the Cake 

1 c sugar
Zest, from 1 lemon
2-3 sprigs of rosemary
1 ½ c cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½  c butter, at room temperature
2 eggs
½  c milk

For the Lemon Curd

3 egg yolks
¾  c sugar
¼ c water
¼ lemon juice (juice from 1 lemon)
Zest from lemon
¼ c butter, cut into cubes

For the Frosting

3 egg whites
1 c sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a 6 inch round baking pan, set aside. In a food processor, pulse together the sugar, lemon zest and rosemary, until just combined and the rosemary is broken down into smaller pieces. In a medium bowl sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, on medium-high speed cream together butter and sugar mixture until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Slowly alternate adding in the milk and flour mixture, ending with the dry. Mix until just incorporated.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 45 minutes - 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow cake to cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the Lemond Curd - In a saucepan combine egg yolks, sugar, water, lemon juice and zest. Simmer over medium heat, stir constantly until mixture starts to thicken and boil. Allow mixture to boil for 2-3 minutes then stir in butter. Boil for an additional 1-2 minutes then remove from heat. Allow to cool completely

To make the frosting - Over a double boiler heat together the egg white and sugar for 5 -7 minutes, whisking constantly. Transfer mixture to a clean kitchenaid mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on high for 5 - 7 minutes or until stiff glossy peaks form.

To assemble the cake - Torte cake into three even layers. Place your bottom layer on parchment paper. Spread a thin layer of meringue followed by a generous layer of lemon curd.  Top with your second layer of cake, repeat filling process and top with your final layer of cake. Using an off set spatula, frost cake with an even layer of meringue. If desired, brown meringue using a kitchen torch or oven broiler. If using the broiler, transfer your cake to a baking tray. Place in oven for 1-2 minutes or until meringue is lightly browned.