My ice cream maker is god. I swear. Strawberry ice cream has always been one of my favourite flavours.. but I have a problem with the store bought kind (aside from the lactose). You see, I hate fruit chunks in store bought things. The berries in yogurt and ice cream are always gooey and soggy and stringy… gross!! It just really bothers me. For the longest time I wanted to chalk it up to frozen fruit that they’re using… but when I make smoothies and homemade ice cream using that, mine are okay. The chunks stay solid. So needless to say the strawberry ice cream that is in grocery stores I hate. It’s a real pain to find a nice ice creamery every time you want some strawberry ice cream if you’re a weirdo and hate chunks like me!

So I made up this lovely recipe! And since summer is around the corner and it’s starting to get really warm, I thought now would be a good time to share it with you guys. So here it is,  strawberries & cream ice cream, with crushed walnuts!

Strawberry Ice Cream

3 cups (lactose free) milk
1 cup + 2 tbsp (lactose free) cream
1 cup sugar
2 heaping tbsp plain greek yogurt
3/4 cup strawberry puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp honey

Combine the milk, cream and sugar together in a large pitcher and mix together. Add the yogurt next while continuing to stir, make sure the yogurt gets mixed in as thoroughly as possible. Set aside and create your strawberry puree in a blender. (I like to throw in a little more than a cup of strawberries – frozen or fresh, with a splash of water and blend for about a minute.) Add in the purre, vanilla, sugar and honey and mix again.

Following your ice cream maker manual’s directions, pour the mixture into the machine. While the machine is doing it’s thing, cut up some strawberries in to small bite sized chunks – I used already frozen ones for this because I ran out of fresh ones. Add them to the ice cream about 5 minutes before its done. My machine takes about 25-30 minutes, so I add them around the 20-25 minute mark. At this point you can also add the crushed walnuts, or you can set them aside and just garnish your ice cream with them when you’re ready to enjoy some!

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, here’s a good website with a few different options of how to make ice cream without one.

Also just to let you guys know I decided to go ahead and make a facebook page for the blog! I’d love it if you’d like it (that sounds really weird to me) you can do so here.

Posted in Desert, Food, ice cream • 2 Comments

I really wanted to make something a little different for easter desert. I hadn’t made ice cream in a while, so I thought mini egg ice cream. But then I thought that was too expected. I sat down with one of my favourite  (sadly retired) spring tea’s, Jolly Jellybean by DAVIDsTea… Jellybeans. Jellybeans!!!!

I was really worried it was going to be too sweet, or just plain weird, but it turned out to be ammaaazing. I’m so glad I went with my gut and took a chance. As always, if you’re lactose intolerant like I am, just use lactose free milk & cream! Easy peasy and super tasty!

♥ 3 cups milk
♥ 1 cup + 2 tbsp cream
♥ 1 cup sugar
♥ 2 heaping tbsp plain greek yogurt
♥ 2-3 tsp agave nectar
♥ 1 tsp vanilla
♥ chopped and whole jellybeans

Follow the instructions for your ice cream maker, mine requires adding solid ingredients (ie the jellybeans) at the 20 minute mark/just before the ice cream is done. It’s amazing how the cream actually soaked up the flavour of the jellybeans too. My ice cream maker creates ice cream similar to soft serve, so I like to pop it in my freezer safe container and freeze it for a bit before serving.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!

Posted in Desert, Food, ice cream • 3 Comments

These cookies are probably the best thing I’ve ever created. Honest. The first time I made them, (for the Santa Clause Parade hehe) they were gone by the end of the day. This recipe makes roughly 2-3 dozen. The second time I made them  I wanted to take them to work. They didn’t make it out my door. I eventually got a batch to work (two actually!), and had a friend who even paid me to make an entire batch for her. They’re actually pretty simple to make and don’t take too much time either.

So before I get into the recipe, you might have noticed that on my last recipe post and this one that I’ve included printable ‘recipe cards’. (See the last photo above.) Should I keep doing this? Or am I wasting my time with this little extra feature?! Let me know if you like them :)

Text-friendly copy:

♥ 2 1/4 cup gluten free, all purpose flour.
♥ 1 tsp baking powder
♥ 1 tsp baking soda
♥ 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
♥ 3/4 cup softened butter
♥ 1 cup sugar
♥ 2 large eggs
♥ 2 tsp vanilla extract
♥ 2-3 tsp peppermint extract
♥ 2 cups chocolate & white chocolate chips
♥ 4-6 large candy canes, crushed

preheat oven to 375F. bake for 9-12 minutes.

• Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Then add the butter and eggs, mix again. It’s easier to mix the dough with your hands at this point.

• Add the vanilla and peppermint extract and mix it really well using your hands. The dough is going to be thick and hard to work with. Add the crushed candy canes and chocolate chips and mix together one final time.

• Create small dough balls roughly around one inch. Place them on a baking sheet, lined with either parchment paper or tin foil (shiny side down, lightly greased). Spread the dough balls about 1-2 inches apart. Bake for 9-12 minutes.

Hope you all had a good weekend! :)

Posted in Desert, Food, Gluten Free • 1 Comment

Oh my it’s been a while! My laptops battery.. um kinda exploded. Inside my laptop. But I got a new battery for Christmas and I’m back in business!  So expect a few belated holiday-themed posts in the next week or so. I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday! With the New Year right around the corner I thought I’d share my pink champagne ice cream recipe – it’s one of my favourites.

Text-friendly copy:

♥ 1 cup finely chopped strawberries
♥ 1/2 cup puree strawberries
♥ 3 cups milk (I used lactose free)
♥ 2 tbsp cream (again, lactose free)
♥ 1 cup sugar
♥ 1 cup + 2 tbsp pink champagne
♥ 1 tsp vanilla

• Boil about half a bottle of pink champagne. (Alcohol doesn’t freeze, this will help remove some of the alcohol.)

• Combine all the liquid ingredients into a large pitcher and stir. Add the sugar and puree and stir again. Slowly pour the mixture into your ice cream maker. and the sugar into a large pitcher and stir.

• My ice cream maker takes about 20 minutes, at the last 5 minute mark add the chopped strawberries. It should be a soft-serve consistency when done. Put it into a freezer safe container and freeze for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Happy New Years everyone!

Posted in Desert, Food, Gluten Free • 2 Comments