Have been looking at many other local food blogs for recipes to try lately and started to notice how simple my blog was. So decided to do something about it and started adding pages such as "About", "Travel" and "Recipes". It was through the setting up of the Recipe Index page that I realised that I haven't been giving enough credits to the bloggers whom I took the recipes from. So tried to make an effort to edit some of the posts to link back to the original recipes but sad to say I wasn't 100% successful in that sense. Nevertheless, I made a promise to myself to be mindful in linking back to the original recipes in other blogs.
Ok, enough of my babbling and back to what I'm supposed to write. Saw this mango ice cream recipe in The Little Teochew some time back and had been wanting to give it a try coz I wanted to finish up my icing sugar. Wanted to be a little bit original and so instead of using mangoes, I brainstormed on what other fruits I could use. Considered canned peaches, banana, lychee and finally decided on strawberries. Firstly, I thought it may produce a nice pink color to the ice cream; secondly, in the event I could not find whipping cream, I could at least use it to make strawberry sorbet which is a variation to the raspberry sorbet by The Little Teochew.
Then I thought about how to present the ice cream in the photoshoot and decided that perhaps I could serve it in a martini glass with a bit of crushed nuts on top and one or two chocolate porky sticks. So went to Tanjong Pagar NTUC yesterday during lunch intending to get the strawberries, martini glass and whipping cream. I saw pure cream but not whipping cream and dare not buy it in case they are not the same thing. I also couldn't find the glass and strawberries in the NTUC. Therefore, I went to the market to try my luck and managed to get a punnet of strawberries weighing 454g that cost $7 from one of the fruit stalls.
Strawberries...
| 
... are big and red.
|
Asked my colleague if she knows the difference between pure cream, whipped cream and whipping cream and she said she thought whipped cream and whipping cream were the same. In other words, whipped cream is a result of whipping cream being whipped. Then she went on to tell me that whipped cream is moose like and usually in can. So I was pretty sure that whipped cream and whipping cream are two different things. Went on to google about it and many people also said they are two different things. After establishing the fact that they are not the same, the next thing was to find out where in Singapore I could find whipping cream. Again googled for the information and found out that NTUC actually carries a brand called Emborg.
So after work, I went to the NTUC in Bukit Merah Central which is a bigger branch to look for the whipping cream and martini glass. Found the former and bought two 200ml tetra packs at $3.40 each but not the latter. I was tempted to get the glass for ice cream but in the end I didn't coz it didn't look very nice and I recalled that I have some plastic jelly cups with legs that I could use in the photoshoot. Also grabbed a packet of meji chocolate sticks before queuing for payment.
Got home, took some photos of the nice, big, red strawberries before washing them. Then dried them using the kitchen towels before cutting them into halves and sprinkled some sugar on them. Left them to stand for a couple of hours till the sugar dissolved before putting them into the freezer to freeze overnight. The reason I froze the strawberries overnight was that my food processor is made to process dry food and so in order to use it on the strawberries, I thought freezing them would solve my problem.
Strawberries cut into halves...
| 
... and sprinkled with sugar.
|
Woke up to the bright sunshine, ate breakfast and started off with ice cream making. Took the food processor out, measured two cups of frozen strawberries, let them stood for a while before blitzing them to puree. The end product was something between strawberry smoothie and strawberry icy. All the while taking photos and measurements as I work.
The food processor
 Chocolate chips and chocolate sticks  Frozen strawberries... |  The icing sugar  Whipping cream  ... close up. |
Then ran the puree through the sieve in order to remove the seeds. This proved to be harder than I thought because the puree was still icy. Had to use the back of the spoon to stir it constantly to make it melt and push it through the sieve which took me about half an hour. So I guess to save the hassle, I should have use a blender (if I have) to make the fresh strawberries into puree before running it through the sieve.
Strawberries puree with seeds
| 
Strawberry puree without seeds
|
Anyway, after I was done with that, added the icing sugar and the whipping cream. Then started whisking the mixture using a balloon whisk. After about 15 minutes into it, it dawned on me that perhaps I should have used an electric mixer which I don't have. So continued for another 15 minutes and still the mixture didn't have the "soft peak". In the end, I gave up and just poured the mixture into a corning ware casserole and plonk it into the freezer, hoping that it would start to crystallise in 2 hours.
Strawberry puree, icing sugar and whipping cream mixture
After two hours, took the container out and saw that there were ice crystals at the sides but the centre was still liquid. So churned using the balloon whisk and put it back into the freezer again. Well... I guessed if it didn't turn out to be ice cream, it would make a darn good strawberry smoothie. After another 2 hours, took the mixture out to churn again, this time there were more ice crystals forming. Put it back in and after another 2 hours, repeated the process. In total, I churned the mixture for three times at 2 hours interval.
Took the mixture out to check after about 12 hours since the first time I put the mixture into the fridge and the texture was like soft serve ice cream. A thought struck that maybe I shouldn't put the mixture in a corning ware casserole and so transferred the mixture into one of those rectangular takeaway boxes, scooped some into another squarish takeaway box to bring to the office the next day and left everything in the freezer overnight.
Ingredients:
1 tbsp sugar
160g icing sugar
370g strawberries
400ml whipping cream
handful of chocolate chips
Method:
1. Wash, drain and dry strawberries before cutting into halves
2. Line them on a plate and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar over them
3. Let them stand till sugar dissolves and put them in the freezer overnight
4. Take the frozen strawberries out and let them stand for about 10 mins
5. Blitz the frozen strawberries using a food processor
5. Run the strawberry puree through a wire mesh to remove seeds
6. Add icing sugar and whipping cream to the seedless puree
7. Whisk the mixture till they are well combined
8. Pour the mixture into a container of your choice and put into the freezer
9. Take out after 2 hours to churn using a spoon and repeat this step for another 3 times
10. Leave the mixture in the freezer overnight for it to firm
Took the mixture out to check after about 12 hours since the first time I put the mixture into the fridge and the texture was like soft serve ice cream. A thought struck that maybe I shouldn't put the mixture in a corning ware casserole and so transferred the mixture into one of those rectangular takeaway boxes, scooped some into another squarish takeaway box to bring to the office the next day and left everything in the freezer overnight.
Ingredients:
1 tbsp sugar
160g icing sugar
370g strawberries
400ml whipping cream
handful of chocolate chips
Method:
1. Wash, drain and dry strawberries before cutting into halves
2. Line them on a plate and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar over them
3. Let them stand till sugar dissolves and put them in the freezer overnight
4. Take the frozen strawberries out and let them stand for about 10 mins
5. Blitz the frozen strawberries using a food processor
5. Run the strawberry puree through a wire mesh to remove seeds
6. Add icing sugar and whipping cream to the seedless puree
7. Whisk the mixture till they are well combined
8. Pour the mixture into a container of your choice and put into the freezer
9. Take out after 2 hours to churn using a spoon and repeat this step for another 3 times
10. Leave the mixture in the freezer overnight for it to firm
No comments:
Post a Comment