Root Beer Freeze

It's time again for Secret Recipe Club reveal!  My secret blog assignment this month was Meghan's blog Cupcakes with Sprinkles.  With a blog name like that, you'd think there would be plenty of cupcake recipes, as well as other desserts - and you'd be right!  There are tons of dessert recipes to choose from.  Oh yes, Meghan has a huge sweet tooth! She's definitely a dessert before dinner kinda gal.  Besides cooking and baking, Meghan likes to quilt, sew, scrapbook, and decorate her house - and she's got three adorable children to keep up with!

One of the sweet recipes that caught my eye turned out to be my recipe from the time Meghan had my blog for SRC. I should probably make those again soon, but not today.

Here are just a few of Meghan's recipes I want to try:

• Slow Cooker Apple Barbecue Chicken
• Slow Cooker Beef & Broccoli
• Strawberry Lemon Cookie Bars

See, not all sweets, but when I saw this recipe for Root Beer Freeze, I knew I had to try it. It seems Summer has finally decided to get hot, and this looked like the perfect cool treat. 

Root Beer Freeze
from Cupcakes with Sprinkles

Ingredients:

• 4 1/4 cups (1 liter) Root Beer
• 1- 14oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk

Directions:

1. Pour chilled root beer and sweetened condensed milk into a large bowl and stir until combined.
2. To freeze:
   either pour it into your ice cream maker and follow the instructions for your ice cream maker,
   or if you don't have an ice cream maker, pour it into a 9x13 pan and freeze for an hour. Break into pieces and blend until smooth. Return to the pan and freeze until firm.

Such a simple and delicious treat!  If you like root beer floats, you will love this.  It tastes just like a root beer float, and the entire thing is the best part - the icy bits!  My husband and I liked this so much I made it twice.  I mean, I did buy a 2-liter bottle of root beer.  What else was I gonna do with the other half?

For an adults only version: pour some Baileys Irish Cream over the top.  Oh, yum!  It's like a creamy, icy, frozen version of a Baileys Harbor, the drink our son introduced us to a few summers ago.  It's just root beer and Bailey's over ice, and it's really good.   But this is better!

An InLinkz Link-up

Rum Raisin Ice Cream

It's time again for  Secret Recipe Club (Secret Recipe Club) reveal! This month I got to choose a recipe from the awesome blog delishhh. The blog is written by Ewa [eva], a happy Swede living in Seattle, WA. Her blog is full of delicious recipes, and once again I had trouble picking just one.  Unfortunately, my oven is not working right now, so I'll have to try the Rhubarb Cheesecake and Rhubarb Chocolate Chip Banana Bread later.  Notice they both have rhubarb.  I think Ewa likes rhubarb as much as I do!

But, since I can't bake, I started looking at some other recipes.  I thought about making some Frozen Strawberry Daiquiris, with frozen strawberries since fresh ones aren't really in season right now. Or this Peach Sorbet with frozen peaches for the same reason - though I did see some huge peaches in the store the other day, and I was tempted to grab some.  Instead, I decided to make some Rum Raisin Ice Cream.

My favorite Haagen-Dazs flavor was always Rum Raisin.  I don't get it very often, and there for a while I had trouble even finding it - so, of course, I always had to check.  Somewhere along the line I kind fo forgot about it, so when I saw this recipe, it brought back fond memories, and I just had to try it.  I also just recently bought a new Hamilton Beach Ice Cream Maker, and I really needed to try it out.

Rum Raisin Ice Cream
from delishhh

Ingredients:

• 1 cup raisins
• ½ cup dark rum (I used Malibu Black coconut rum)
• 1 cup milk
• A pinch of salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 5 large egg yolks
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Soak the raisins in rum overnight.
2. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan, until sugar is dissolved and the mixture starts to steam.
3. Set up an ice bath by placing a 2-quart bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice and water. Set a strainer over the top of the smaller bowl and pour the cream into the bowl.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks. Gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.
5. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.
6. Strain the custard into the heavy cream and stir over the ice until cool.  Add the vanilla extract, then refrigerate to chill thoroughly, preferably overnight.
7. Drain the rum from the raisins. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Depending on your ice cream maker, you will either add the raisins to the custard before pouring it into the ice cream maker, or wait and add them when the mixture is partially frozen.
8. Serve immediately or scoop ice cream out of ice cream maker, put into a freezer container and freeze for several hours before serving.

Makes 1.5 quarts

Ewa used a vanilla bean in her recipe, so there was an extra step after she heated the milk and sugar, where she added the vanilla bean and allowed it to infuse the milk for an hour.  I skipped that step because I just plain forgot to even look for vanilla beans when I went to the store.  Also, I forgot to use the strainer to pour my custard into my cream, because I hadn't used it in a while so I rinsed it and set it aside to dry while I was cooking the custard - and then forgot all about it.  I'm not really sure why I needed the strainer, so I don't think that hurt anything.  I definitely had to freeze the ice cream for several hours after the ice cream maker finished, because it was a very soft version of soft-serve ice cream - not the texture I think of when I think of Rum Raisin ice cream.  After freezing, it was hard enough to scoop but still soft and creamy.

This ice cream is SO GOOD!  I haven't bought rum raisin ice cream in ages, so I can't tell you if this tastes the same - or better - but I do know that it is yummy, and I will be making this one again.  Rum Raisin is still one of my favorite ice cream flavors.

Wondering what to do with the rum you drain off the raisins? Drizzle it on top of the ice cream!  YUM!

I'm excited about making all kinds of ice creams now that I've got the ice cream maker. I love that I can have delicious ice cream for probably about the same cost as the store-bought stuff - or less in the case of this Rum Raisin - only I know exactly what ingredients are going into it.

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