Where biscuit is a scone not a cookie.
Hold onto your hat because this is a huge photo set.
Originally the idea was to create little personal chocolate cakes, cupcakes, and that was done too and described below. But that only filled seven cups of a twelve cup tin that was already prepared. Something had to be done, and done quickly or else the preparation of the cups would be wasted, my least favorite part, and they would burn onto the tray needlessly.
It is a very good tray. The best. I read a bunch of reviews on Amazon, only the worst reviews because they are the best, usually the most informative anyway. Man,what a bunch of nit-pickers over there.
This tray here does have the best reviews, but then there is always a chance that buyers are just confirming their biases. I bought one. Then immediately a friend dropped by to return the tired old tin that I lent him. He borrows everything. I asked him what he thought about paying $20.00 for a tin. He thought the idea was insane and elaborated on why in accordance to his values, none of which had to do with great cupcakes, alternate uses, longevity, one-time purchases, quality considerations, even baking, reliable release, heft of product, sturdy materials, etc. He couldn't understand how in the world anyone could even consider it for something so unimportant. So I explained how someone could reasonably consider it. He laughed and said, "You're just trying to justify it!" As if he had discovered the most damaging 'gotchya.' I replied, "I have already justified it. I was just interested in hearing what you would say.
So let me say then, as far cupcake trays go, this Calphalon™ is brilliant. Not only did both the little cakes and the biscuits bake perfectly and evenly and release beautifully, they veritably leapt out of the tray when I upturned it. You have to appreciate that whether you use a thing frequently or not.
First the ice cream.
Do not bother with vanilla beans from the grocery. You get one long Burbon Madagascar bent in a tiny jar. It is quite old by the time it gets to you, often it is useless, and it will cost you something like $5.00. Rather, get them from an eBay vendor. You will have your choice of country of origin, amounts even up to pounds and quarter pounds, and you can choose your grade. My last order was modest but the vendor made an error and shipped my order twice but charged me only once. That means I can gleefully tear through vanilla beans with undisciplined abandon. They don't last forever, you know.
I didn't use recipes for any of this, nor was anything carefully measured. My approach is haphazard. But it is thoughtful haphazardness if that isn't oxymoronic. Moreover, I must scoop things out using something, so that turns out to be some kind of spoon or measuring cup , and I must pour things into something and those too turn out to be measuring cups. In this case I was aiming for approximately one quart of ice cream because that is what my little machine can handle. There is a fresh quart of cream on hand but I will only use half of it. I can either pour out half of the container, or I can pour it into a sixteen-ounce measuring cup. I use the measuring cup since I must measure the milk anyway. So:
* 2 cups heavy whipping cream
* 2 cups 2% milk
* 3/4 cup sugar
Gone are the days of cream + Half & Half for ice cream mixture, since I read the fat contents and realized that Half & Half has more fat in it than regular table cream. It defies logic, it does.
* 3 medium length vanilla beans, scraped
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 4 egg yolks
This is crème anglaise, a custard, so frozen custard exactly.
* 3 bananas
* bis cup banana liqueur
The banana liqueur is added after the bananafied crème anglaise cools. I do not want any of its banana liqueur-y goodness lost by heat.
Why bother with banana liqueur? One bothers because chilled food is less flavorful than hot food. FACT! The liqueur is added to boost the natural banana flavor. The crème anglaise tastes great without it, but once it is chilled to ice cream some of the banana flavor will not come through. So we're overdoing it a little bit to compensate for the chill factor flavor reduction.
The cream and milk is heated to dissolve the sugar. The yolks are whisked, the whisk is twirled by rubbing the handle between the palms of the hands as if the whisk were a fire-starter, and then the whisked egg is combined with a cup of the hot mixture to temper the egg yolks. The cup of hot mixture with egg is added back to the pot of the hot mixture while whisking. So there will be no scrambled eggs happening here that result from cold egg yolks being dumped into a near boiling hot liquid. The introduction of egg yolks changes ordinary ice cream mixture to a custard, crème anglaise, specifically. So technically, this is frozen custard.
Crème anglaise ↓
Three bananas, not two.
Due to the bulk of these three bananas, the total amount of mixture now exceeds the target one quart quantity. This terrible plight must be corrected by consuming a portion of the banana crème anglaise before the mixture goes into the machine or else it will overflow. Terrible situation that, just terrible.
The banana crème anglaise is processed with an immersion blender to smooth out those lumpy banana chunks. The hot pot is placed into cold water bath to rapidly chill before the pot is placed in the refrigerator. The temperature of the mixture must be lowered as closely as possible to freezing without forming any ice crystals. This reduces the burden of the machine which is little more than a toy. You cannot tell because it is so clear, but there is water in the sink chilling the pot ↓.
These are the parts to the machine. All of these mechanical parts are frozen except for the base and the motor, in order to help make the whole thing simple and fast.
The parts assembled but without the cover.
The banana liqueur is also chilled. It will not freeze. I think. It will also prevent the banana crème anglaise from ever having the chance of forming large ice crystals. I believe it will keep the ice cream soft. But I am not sure. At any rate, we do not want it to be warm when we add it to the banana crème anglaise or it will vitiate the chilling and that would not be helpful to the machine.
See how the bulk of the mixture increases from this ↑ to this ↓. That is the machine incorporating air into the crème anglaise custard by turning. This same churning while chilling is what prevents the formation of large ice crystals when alcohol is not present.
The central ring of this cover has a lid like a hubcap but I took it off to show the swirl of the ice cream.
So there's that.
Now for the cupcakes which also contain alcohol.
Originally I intended to add a chocolate liqueur just to use it for once since it sits there on a shelf for years unused, but then changed to Kahlúa because I thought the essence of coffee would be nice with the chocolate. Kahlúa is supposed to be coffee flavor, right?
Tins are prepared with butter and flour. Cocoa could have substituted for flour but I didn't want a huge cocoa mess on the work surface. The cups must be partially filled, tapped about to distribute the powder, then the excess tapped out. It's a mess either way. I could deal with a flour mess more easily than a cocoa mess. I could have also used paper inserts but I wanted the result to be little cakes not those zig-zaggy edges that declare, 'cupcakes.' Cupcakes are for kids, these are petits gâteaux! * sniff *
* One egg
* 3/4 cup sugar thoroughly whipped into the egg
* 3 oz vegetable oil. This is 3/4 of 1/2 measuring cup, or 1 + 1/2 of a 1/4 measuring cup. Does this make sense?
MATHS !
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup Kahlúa
* 1 cup sifted flour
* 2 level teaspoons baking powder
* 3 rounded teaspoons cocoa powder
* 1/8 teaspoon cayenne powder. I do not know why I added this
* 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/8 teaspoon allspice
The mixture was too stiff so more Kahlúa was drizzled in and stirred. Still too stiff so more Kahlúa was drizzled in and stirred. It seemed the right viscosity for high-altitude cupcakes, that is stiff, so I stopped. It's totally a judgement call.
Problem. This mixture filled only seven of the cups already prepared in the tray. Unwilling to waste the preparation I decided to fill them with biscuits. During the biscuit preparation I decided to include shredded cheddar cheese along with rubbing in the butter. So cheese takes the place of some of the butter. Near the end I decided to add cocoa as well. So these will be cheddar cheese and chocolate biscuits, the oddest biscuits in the history of biscuits. I await my call from Le Cordon Bleu acknowledging this culinary breakthrough. * drums fingers *
* 1 cup sifted flour
* 1 rounded teaspoon cocoa powder
* 2 level teaspoons baking powder
* 1 oz grated cheese
* 1/4 stick butter (The cheese and the butter are estimations. A wedge of cheese was cut off and a pile of grated cheese was produced by grating. The pile of cheese seemed to be getting too big so I ate the un-grated portion that was cut off. The butter was nicked off in increments while adding it to the flour until the flour was finally saturated with bits of butter and cheese, and all the little butter bits were coated with flour.
* 1/8 cup heavy cream
* 1/8 cup milk ( The cream and milk are also estimates. I used all that remained in an older carton of cream. It was insufficient to moisten all of the flour so I switched to milk which was drizzled in. If I had to guess, and I am guessing here, I would say the total cream + milk was 1/4 cup, but my interest was not the exact measurement but rather what was needed to pull together the dough and hold it and activate the baking powder distributed throughout.
Incidentally, if this were biscuits alone and not cupcakes in the same tin as biscuits, then I would crank up the heat of the oven considerably to shock the baking powder initially into sudden reaction, then cut the heat immediately to a more reasonable level. This is one of the little tricks we biscuit-bakers do that compensates for heat loss due to opening the oven door and arises from an understanding of what is happening inside those little biscuits. No brag, just FACT.
So here is the chocolate cheese biscuit dough ↓.
ARTS !
Ganache is equal parts cream and chocolate. It always seems to need something more, like salt, or cayenne, ginger, or something.
Conclusion: The ice cream is excellent. It would be great with or without the banana liqueur, but I do believe the banana liqueur enhances it wonderfully. Your tastes may vary. I do not know how it will affect the the longer term storage, whether or not it will keep the ice cream softer than it would without it.
I am disappointed that I cannot detect the cheese in the chocolate-cheese biscuits. It is a rather strong Irish cheddar. That might be because there is such strong flavored ganache overtaking it. I haven't tried one without banana ice cream or without extra chocolate interfering.
The chocolate cupcakes are like cake-y type brownies. Nothing outstanding about them at all. They could take raisins or nuts to be more interesting. I cannot taste the effects of Kahlúa, cayenne, cinnamon, or the allspice.
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