Summer is finally here and ice cream recipes, like this one for Strawberry Ice Cream Sandwiches, will overfloweth from this food blog. If you’re just now jumping onto Florida Girl Cooks you’ll need to be properly warned about my obsession with ice cream. It’s a problem, I may need an intervention of sorts, but I will refuse. Haha! My love of ice cream came from my dad. Daily dessert tradition for us after dinner every evening involved my dad taking a tub of Breyer’s Vanilla Bean Ice Cream out of the fridge. From here I would add Chocolate Quik Powder. I know this sounds bizzare, but my saying to that is, don’t knock it until you try it. I have turned my sons onto this combination and they LOVE it. My dad passed away this past October and undoubtedly, every time I sit down to enjoy ice cream with my sons he comes to mind instantly. This blog post is dedicated to my dad, whom I miss dearly.
Strawberry Ice Cream
Ingredients
2 cups strawberries
1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
2 tbsp Cointreau, optional
2 cups half & half
1/4 cup light corn syrup
salt, to taste
fresh lemon juice
Prepare
1. Wash, hull, and quarter 1 cup of strawberries. Slice the quarters very thinly. Place in a mixing bowl and pour 1/2 cup of the sugar and the liquor over the berries. Mix, cover, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, and as long as 2 days.
2. Wash, hull, and slice the remaining berries, and purée in a blender until very smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer to remove the seeds, then measure out 1 1/2 cups of the strained purée. Reserve any extra for another use.
3. Whisk in the 1 1/2 cups of purée, half & half, and corn syrup, whisking until fully combined. Add salt to taste and, if the mixture is too sweet, a few drops of fresh lemon juice.
4. Chill the base until very cold, then freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. In the last minute of churning, retrieve the sliced strawberries from the refrigerator, drain the liquid, and add to the ice cream for the final few turns.
5. Transfer the ice cream to a covered container and freeze for 2 to 3 hours before serving.
Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup supermarket-style smooth peanut butter
1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Prepare
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.
2. Beat together the shortening, sugars, egg, vanilla, and peanut butter until smooth.
3. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt to the peanut-butter mixture, beating gently until everything is well combined. It may take awhile for this rather dry dough to come together; and when it does, it’ll be quite stiff. Only if necessary, drizzle in enough water to make the dough cohesive.
4. Drop the cookie dough by tablespoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets (a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here), leaving 2″ between them.
5. Use a fork to flatten each cookie to about 1/2″ thick, making a cross-hatch design.
6. Bake the cookies for 12 to 16 minutes, until they’re barely beginning to brown around the edges; the tops won’t have browned. Remove them from the oven, and cool on a rack.
Yield: about 2 dozen cookies.
