The first day of Spring here in Northern Indiana gave us a beautiful 87° day. It was awesome and while I planned our garden, Jeff was headed to hike the Appalachians and this amazing weather would be perfect for him and I alike.

Instead the temperature dropped and it rained and our garden had to wait. And Jeff? Well he hiked in the pouring rain and slept in the blustery wind and froze in 20° nights and threatened to throw himself off a cliff so they would air lift his frozen carcass home to me.

Heck just last night we had yet another hard freeze warning.

Mother Nature is f*&#ing with us.

However ice cream don’t care if your freezing. It waits for no one. And even if you are hypothermic, ice cream always manages to make you feel better. And let’s face it eventually this weather will break (this week is the rumor, but I will believe it when I see it) and you will want this recipe in your dessert arsenal. Because to be quite honest and to try not to break my arm while I pat myself on the back, it turned out amazing.

The beer used in this is called Wild Blue. It is an odd beer which I liken more to a fruity wine then a beer. Maybe a combination of wine and beer. (Now THERE’S an idea…) There is no hop aroma and very few end hints of malt. It is however VERY blueberry tasting. And if you like blueberry, you will like this. Plus it packs a punch at 8% alcohol by volume.

Wild Blueberry Beer Cheese Cake Ice Cream

One Bottle of Wild Blue blueberry lager
1 8 oz block WHOLE FAT cream cheese cut into chunks and softened.
1 C half and half (WHOLE FAT) (Heavy cream can also be used)
1 egg
3/4 C sugar
1 heaping C frozen blueberries

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat pour 1 bottle of Wild Blue Blueberry beer. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to low and mix in the cream cheese. Stir till cream cheese is melted and blended. Remove from heat.

Combine the half & half, sugar and egg.

Stir into warm beer mixture and mix till well combined.

Cover and chill in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, get your ice cream maker ready before you remove the beer cream mixture from the fridge. Stir in 1 heaping cup of frozen blueberries and pour the mixture into the ice cream maker. Follow your makers instructions till ice cream is set. Move ice cream to a container and let set up in freezer overnight.

Enjoy!

It should be noted that this beer is not boiled long or is it reduced. Therefore the alcohol content does remain and this is NOT an ice cream for children.

I would assume that this recipe would also work with other strong fruit beers like lambics. Just change the frozen fruit you add accordingly.

By the way this is ALSO part of Elle’s New England Kitchen and my plan for WORLD DOMINATION thru ICE CREAM also affectionately known as SCOOPAPALOOZA. More details to come but head on over to her blog and check it out.

BUT, and I don’t really want to point fingers here… buuuuttttttttt… some one else hasn’t posted in like 6,034,050 days… so if any flogging is going to happen it will be HIS heinie that get’s it NOT mine. I have a plethora of excuses. But only one way to make it up to you…

Another installment in the wonderful that is SCOOPAPALOOZA!

Yea another ice cream… I wish I had like oh I don’t know some juicy JERK PORK CHOPS or some GRILLED ONION CITRUS CHICKEN THIGHS to post but I am in a microscopic apartment at the moment, and making rice causes the inside temps to hit 90 in 3.4 seconds and I am afraid the heat will cause the lake to riptide. I wonder if anyone ELSE has some recipes for the aforementioned dishes to post… donno :donno:.

At least this ice cream… where not grill-able comes with some heat…

That, my friends is my newest warped creation, Mojo Mexican Ice Cream. And yea it is muy caliente y muy fría!

This ice cream is a brown sugar Ceylon cinnamon based cream, with swirls of dulce de leche and Mexican chocolate fudge which is flecked with bits of salted chipotle.

Yes. It is involved. But so very worth it. (Besides if you are like me – you already have cans of dulce in the fridge awaiting its calling so yea half done really…)

Lets start with the base:

2 cups of half and half
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 heaping tablespoon of Ceylon cinnamon (reserved)

(This cream and half & half base is my go to…)

Combine the half and half, the cream and the brown sugar in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium low heat. Stirring occasionally, bring this mixture to 170°. Remember – do not allow to boil… then remove from heat and let cool slightly. Pour into non reactive, air tight container and let cool in fridge overnight. (Must get to 40°)

Next the Dulce:

If I can teach Elle from Elle’s Kitchen to make Dulce de leche this way anyone can do it. Tho I think she stood just outside the kitchen door with blast shields up…

Take a can of sweetened condensed milk and peel the label off it.

Place the can in a deep pot and cover completely with water. Bring water to a boil and allow to boil, making sure that the can is completely covered at all times with water, for about 90 minutes. If you do it longer you will have a thicker dulce. About three hours produces a dulce that you can slice with a knife and eat like a chunk of cheese… (Gonna faint at the thought.) Regardless it is heaven and it is the easiest thing in the world to make. Albeit a little scary for the inexperienced.

Remove the can from the water and let cool. I HAVE opened the can after about 30 minutes when it was still a little hot to the touch (you do NOT need to in this instance…) I did it slowly. Nothing exploded or sprayed out like hot lava. Bottom line is this. I am not a kitchen safety expert, and definitely not following the OSHA guidelines for dulce surety. AND I KNOW damn well that a bunch of you are going to get all up in my ice cream because THIS IS SO NOT SAFE!!! Yea. Well. Neither is eating all of Jeff’s sour patch kids yet I do it…

So the dulce needs to be cool to add to the ice cream or it will melt. BUT you only want it room temperature. So. Leave the can closed on the counter top till you make the actual ice cream and move on to the fudge…

El Mexican Fudge

8 oz Mexican Chocolate (like Ibarra or Abuelita Marqueta, probably called Mexican hot chocolate so yes, this is NOT bitter chocolate)
1/3 cup butter
2 cups powder sugar
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 large dried chipotle pepper
Hot water to cover
1/2 t vanilla salt (just salt is fine too)

In a large saucepan, combine the chocolate and butter. Cook and stir over low heat until melted. Slowly add in the sugar and milk. Increase heat to a low boil and cook, stirring constantly, for about 8 – 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add the vanilla.

Take the chipotle and place in a small bowl or cup and just cover with hot water. Add salt and stir to dissolve. When soft, seed and chop into small dice. Return to water. Let sit till needed.

When the chocolate is cooled, divide. Store half in fridge for future topping use. Rinse and drain the chipotle and then add to the reserved half of the chocolate fudge.

Quick note. The dulce and fudge need to be no hotter or colder then room temperature. So if you make them the day before and store in fridge you will need to them to room temperature before layering in the ice cream.

Are you exhausted yet because I am just typing all this…

Ok so – time to get that ice cream maker out of the freezer and the base out of the fridge. And following your manufacturers guidelines, process the cream base. NOW is when you add the Ceylon cinnamon to the cream. While it is slowly becoming ice cream, get out a 32 oz container in which you will store the ice cream for its final freeze. When the cream is finished becoming ice cream, pour a third of it into the storage container. Then pour in a thin (ish) layer of dulce. Add another third of the ice cream and then add the chocolate chipotle fudge in its own naughty layer. Finally top with the rest of the ice cream. Cover and put immediately in the freezer for a MINIMUM of 4 hours, or as I like to refer to it as… torture.

When serving be sure to scoop all the way down to get to the all the layers.

I accept all forms of flattery & thanks. Go ahead throw money I won’t be offended.

ANYHOO – I already KNEW ice cream was in my future as I recently spied some vanilla beans that I had forgotten we had. Swirl in some of that delicate banana gooeyness with what was already going to be killer and you have PURE SEX on a SPOON. So we recruited Kathy at A Good Appetite Renee at Flamingo Musings and Barbara at Vino Luci (Who hasn’t posted her ice cream yet but DAMN THOSE BROWNIES!) to create banana debauchery along with us. If I were you I would FEAR clicking the previous links of my partners in bananadom because if you are no where NEAR ice cream, you may just PANIC. Then again mayhem may break out just from this photo alone:

And now, because that is the kind of girl I am, I will TEACH you how to cause said mayhem. ( Yea yea, I ROCK.)

You need this:

2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 vanilla bean, split and scraped.

Pint o’ blackberries

4 Bananas

(Oh by the way. You ALSO need a thermometer, an ice cream maker and a food processor to pull this off flawlessly.)

Have everything? Ok…

Then you do this:

Combine the half and half, the cream, sugar and vanilla bean in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium low heat. Stirring occasionally, bring this mixture to 170°. DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL FOR THE LOVE OF GAH!

Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Pour into non reactive, air tight container; throw in the scrapped vanilla bean pod and let cool in fridge overnight. (Must get to 40°)

About 2-3 hours before pulling out the ice cream maker, peel bananas, slice into chunks, and freeze. (If you go longer it is ok, just let them thaw a tad.)

Ok time to make the ice cream. Set up your ice cream maker (according to the manufacturers directions…) and pour in the cream and vanilla mixture. OH! Remove the pods first. (NOW rinse them and dry them and put in your sugar for yummy vanilla sugar!) Turn it on and let it run.

While the ice cream maker is doing its job, take the frozen bananas and process the bejezzus out of them in the food processor. You will need to scrape down the sides like 259,035 times, but it is worth it. Keep it up till you have what looks like ice cream.

During this time, your ice cream maker has probably done its magic and you now have some beautiful double vanilla bean ice cream forming. When you have about 5 minutes left on the ice cream. dump in the black berries. You CAN chop roughly if you like. I just tossed them in whole. While it is wrapping up it job, get out another non reactive air tight container.

Spoon some of the banana “ice cream” on the bottom of the container. Then layer with the vanilla black berry ice cream. More banana. More cream. More banana. More cream… I think you get my drift.

Then place in freezer till it sets. Sorry folks, this AGAIN may be over night.

However your patience will be paid off in SPADES because this is some of the most decadent ice cream you will ever lay your taste buds on.

Oh. You are VERY welcome.