So nuts!: Hazelnut Icecream

 

Summertime is icecreamtime. Okay, I know a few people who love to eat icecream all the year round, but me, I am a very "seasonal" eater.
I like fresh stuff in the summer, like fruits, yoghurt, icecream and so on, but in winter, I don`t eant eat yoghurt, but more warm and heavy stuff.

So it`s not a wonder that our refrigerator is full of icecream at the moment.
We have lemon sorbet, orange sorbet, strawberry-lemon-elderflower sorbet, some chocolate chip icecream, rosemary-honey-icecream, and I am on the run to prepare ananas sorbet and cherry icecream. Well,..umh... I actually lied...Timo ate already the lemon and the orange sorbet. He is not easy to stop while eating fruit sorbets. Especially the lemon one - he says, it`s the best he knows...this is why I have to post the recipe soon. When Timo say "It is the best I know!" it`s kind of a gold medal for me. YEY!
But first: MY favourite.

Hazelnut Icecream is and has always been my baby. Hazelnut icecream, best with hazelnuts and hazelnut sauce. I am nuts about nuts, really!

I found this recipe in a beautiful icecream book a few years ago.
Even if homemade icecream is not going to be as soft and creamy as the one in the supermarket (because there are no chemical add-ons inside that makes everything creamy and tender), I prefer it. The taste is often more honest. The flavours are real. And you know what you put inside. For me, this is very important. I don`t want to have ingredients in my food that have more "x", "y" and "z" I ever can spell in my life.
I wanna know what comes into my stomach, because what I eat is the fuel for my body. I also don`t put hot frying oil into my car.

Well, okay...ehm...back to icecream.
I really like this one. It´s "just" a simple hazelnut icecream. Without glamour and a big bang. It`s pure in taste. I love it like this!

P.S.: You need an icecream machine for this. There are methods to prepare icecream also without a machine, but I didn`t try them yet. Google it, if you need it. But the machines are not expensive. I paid 30 € for mine, and this was 10 years ago. I am still using it and it works fine!

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Hazelnut Icecream
...for two small glasses

> 150 grams whole hazelnuts

> 2 eggs + 2 egg yolk
> 500 ml milk (no low fat!)
> 50 grams sugar (fine,if possible)
> 75 grams brown sugar
> 200 grams Crème double
> 3 Tbsp Frangelico (or another hazelnut liqueur)
> 50 grams dark chocolate

>> Preparing the hazelnuts:
Preheat the oven to about 130°C - put hazelnuts on a baking sheet and roast it. Put out when they smell lovely roasted. Let them cool down a little. While cooling down, you can hear little sounds of the cracking peel. This is a perfect moment to wrap them in a kitchen towel and roll and scrub them with your hands on the table ... that helps to get the dark brown and a little bitter peel off.

>> Preparing the icecream:Mix eggs, eggyolk, white sugar and 40 grams of the brown sugar in a pot until it gets foamy (about 1 minute long)
>> Heat milk in a pot slowly until it begins to cook. Take down from heat, let cool down for a few minutes. Add egg-mixture to the milk.
>> Heat all at middle heat, 8-10 minutes, stiring all the time.
>> When the mixture begins to steam, it must have more or less 75° C (if you`ve got a thermometer you can have a look). Take down from heat - it shouldn`t get hotter, because the eggmixture will clod.

>> Grind 120 grams of your roasted hazlenuts with the rest of the brown sugar (35 grams) in a kitchen machine.
>> Mix 1/3 of the eggmixture with the grinded hazelnuts for about 1 minute
>> Add the rest of the eggmixture, mix very well and let cool down in the refrigerator for at leats one hour.

>> Put a sieve upon a pot. Add your mixture into the sieve and strain it until you have only the dry hazelnut rests left over. Put them in the trash bin.
>> Beat the Crème Double until fluffy and fold into the mixture.
>> You can pour it now into your icecream machine until it`s freezy enough to put into a pot. Deep freeze for at least 4 or 5 hours.
>> Melt chocolate ina hot water bath, let cool down a little and pour over the icecream. Sprinkle immediately with the rest of the nuts.


>> If you wanna serve it, put out of the freezer 15 minutes before you want to eat it.

Don´t forget to dance around in the kitchen, singing "Hallelujah, I just made icecream" or something else what makes sense.

Summerly Apricot-Lavender Compote

First of all: Sorry, lovely people, one month has passed and I didn`t post you more stuff.
I really cooked a lot last time. Summer was immediately there, with sun, strawberries, cherries, berries, apricots and and and, and my eyes and ideas were exploding - my time unfortunately not.

I took the time for cooking, even if my "normal" work (in filming and computer game artwork) takes me up a lot at the moment. But when I come home from work, cooking and experimenting in the kitchen is my evening meditation (I guess, Timo is quite happy about that kind of relaxation method :)). I love to smell everything, to cut and to feel the stuff I am preparing. But I actually had no time for pleasurable photography,and I don`t want to make just "clickclick" for quick pictures.

I can`t do "big" things in my little leisure-time in the evening. So I watched out for easy but interesting and summerly yummyumms. Here is one of it. It is quickly made, I swear, and if you fill it in sterilized jars (cook them in hot water for 15 minutes, fill in stuff when glasses come out hot), you can store it in the fridge for one or two weeks.

As dish I made pancakes and waffles...this is a very quick meal, easy to handle, and you can use a lot of creative stuff for topping.
For example this one here.

Have a look at the photos. The apricots here are cutted in half. After eating, I must say I would cut them smaller. Make bits you can eat easier than half an abricot.

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Apricot-Lavender Compote
...for two small glasses

> 4 apricots, pitted
> 2 tbsp sugar
> 60 ml apple juice
> some lavender blossoms, dried (here in Germany, you get them in the pharmacy, f.e. - you don`t need much. Buy the smallest amount they sell. You don`t even need 10 grams)


>> Cut apricots in small pieces (size = nice to bite on)
>> Melt sugar in a little pot at low to medium heat (be careful...it takes some patience until it melts, but then it caramelizes very quickly)
>> When lightly brown and glossy, add juice and let cook while stiring until the sugar dissolved completely
>> Add apricots and a good pinch of lavender blossoms (their taste is quite intense, don`t use too much)
>> Let cook for about 5 minutes
>> serve it warm or cold or put it in sterilized glasses and then in the fridge.