ITCHYITCHY

My sister got me my icecream maker for my birthday 2 months ago, and I made one batch of coconut icecream and left it packed on top of the refrigerator since. I feel terribly guilty. Problem is, I find using 5 egg yolks in my icecream slightly excessive and to be honest, a little scary. Needless to say I had been rummaging through countless vegan blogs hoping to find something dairy free and egg free. Might have been me being fussy but I didn't want a sorbet and other recipes I found asked for soy cream and fancy soy milk powders but I didn't know where to get them. Frustrated I declared- I GIVE UP!

But you know there is a cookbook about practically everything out there now. A book all about fish, a book all about chocolate (no, make that MANY books all about chocolate) and whatnot and Vice Cream is probably the IT book I needed. =) Decided to just close my eyes and pick out a recipe, I ended up making a 'raw' strawberry ice cream and mmmmmmm, it's pretty darn good. Different from what I expected since there was no sugar that was used instead, pureed dates stood in as a sweetener. Needless to say the icecream tasted like dates and strawberries which somehow made the flavour deeper. The texture was somewhere in between an icecream and a sorbet. Next on my list is peanut butter with chocolate. Gotta be good huh.

Here's the recipe (modified) from Jeff Rogers' Vice Cream, short sweet and simple.

1 vanilla bean
1.5 cups almond milk (I used fat-free soy milk)
1 cup organic pitted dates
1.5 cup packed hulled organic strawberries

1) Place the dates in boiling water to cover and let sit overnight (I chucked mine in the microwave for 4 minutes since I'm not fussed about being 'raw')
2) Remove the skins off the dates if you mind the specks in the final product, else leave it.
3) Blend the dates with the milk and the strawberries and vanilla seeds until silky smooth
4) Chill well before preparing according to ice-cream machine manufacturer's instructions.
5) Serve immediately or freeze and thaw 10 minutes before serving.

stickydate weird pudding

Today's the sort of day that you want to stay indoors- no going out for lunch, no going to get some groceries and definitely no going to the Melbourne Show. Luckily I've already done that on Monday so there, no dreadful 'i-wasted-a-good-day' feeling. =)

I spent the better part of yesterday tossing ideas in my head. I had a baking itch and since I haven't baked for a week or more (I was in Sydney on a girls trip!), I felt slightly guilty I had been neglecting the oven. So was it going to be coconut macaroons or stickydate pudding (more like a cake if you ask me) and I went with the stickydate, just because I had been wanting to bake it for a while now and if you ask me, I much like baking things that take a wee bit more effort. Makes you feel all sorts of happy and contented, none of that 'whip it up in 10 minutes' for me. Besides, my theory is that if you wanna bake, do it properly. So i used this gluten free recipe from Women's Day and was hoping for the best. I was attracted to it because it used such a wide variety of flours and I really wanted to try out the soy flour I had gotten awhile back.

So after I got back from dinner (INDIAN!), I decided to do the first bit which was to cook the dates and water for 5 minutes then add the bicarb soda and let sit for 20. After i did that, I went to get DVDs (Tuesday night special at videoezy) and came home to do the rest. It looked good in the mixing bowl, looked good rising in the oven but taste wise, it was really off.

I might blame it on the fact that I used Melrose instead of butter (I'm trying to be dairy free) or that I added cinnamon instead of nutmeg. Whatever it was, the texture was good, soft and sticky and today it remained moist even though I just left it sitting on the counter top. I don't know about this one...I suppose a large part of the problem MIGHT be that I didn't make the butterscotch toffee sauce to drench it in but hey, shouldn't a cake taste good on it's on without the added fancy schmancies? =( BUGGER. Now I feel like my baking itch hasn't been well satisfied. Oh well, I've got a few more days til school starts so til then, I'll think of something new to bake. =)

Holy...

Holy! It's been a full month since I've blogged. I have good reason for missing out on the world-uni! Oh wells, I haven't stopped baking, if that's what you're wondering. I have just been everywhere at once, just not here =)

Siew and I have embarked on our multimedia project for uni and we had huge plans for it. Started with using Director to make me a cake catalogue, then decided that we should do an aesthetic piece about food and friendship and we ended up with a interactive photo collage thingy. Don't ask. I'm confused myself. Good thing though, I got some nice photos out of it! =) Here's some...

and more...

Allrighty, now it's back to working on my presentation! I promise I'll have more brownie photos up soon! =)