Mint chocolate ice cream

Ingredients

• 4 oz. chocolate chips (about ¾ cup) -- I prefer Guittard  
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 pint cream
• 1 tsp mint extract -- I prefer Nielsen-Massey
• ¼ tsp salt

Equipment

• ice cream maker

Instructions

1. Put the chocolate chips, sugar, and 1/4 of the cream in a bowl. 
2. Microwave to melt, about 1 minute.
3. Whisk chocolate mixture until smooth.
4. Add remaining cream in 3 portions, whisking after each addition.
5. Mix in vanilla and salt.
6. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
7. Freeze in ice cream maker.

Chocolate butter cupcakes with chocolate whipped cream

For Noah's birthday today, we made chocolate cupcakes. We used Rose Levy Beranbaum's chocolate butter cupcake recipe from her Heavenly Cakes book. (It's an amazing book. All of her books are worth buying and reading and baking from.) I won't post it here -- just buy the book. :)

One of the rewarding things about Rose's cake recipes is that they come out perfectly flat on top, which makes it easy to apply frosting.

The texture is lighter and softer than a typical chocolate cake, partly due to the use of cake flour and superfine sugar, rather than all-purpose flour and granulated sugar, and partly due to her special mixing technique, which involves mixing softened butter into the dry ingredients, prior to adding the liquids.

For frosting, Noah wanted something chocolaty but light, so we used my version of chocolate whipped cream. It goes like this:

Chocolate whipped cream

-- adapted from this recipe

Ingredients

• 3 T cocoa powder (I prefer Guittard Cocoa Rouge)
• 3 T sugar
• 1 C cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Tools

• Electric hand mixer

Directions

• Measure the cocoa powder and sugar into a metal bowl. Put the bowl and the beaters from the mixer into the freezer, to chill.
• Add 3 T of the cream, and the vanilla, to the dry ingredients. Mix to form a paste.
• Add the rest of the cream in a couple of batches, mixing to uniformity after each addition.
• Whip until there are stiff peaks.
• Yield: 4 servings

Happy birthday!

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

Background

These pancakes are delicately flavored with lemon and cardamom. They are gluten-free and wheat-free, but contain dairy and eggs -- ricotta and eggs give them their body, meaning very little flour is required. To make them low carb, replace the maple syrup with a low-calorie sweetener. These are currently the favorite pancake variation at my house.

Ingredients

• 3/4 C chickpea flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 2 1/2 C ricotta (whole milk)
• 6 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp lemon extract (I prefer Nielsen-Massey); or use lemon zest
• 1/3 C maple syrup
• butter for frying

Directions

1. Combine the dry ingredients (first 4).
2. Combine the wet ingredients (next 5).
3. Mix the dry into the wet, thoroughly.
4. Let the batter rest for about 10 minutes.
5. Fry pancakes in butter, on medium-high heat. They are rather delicate, so flip them carefully. It helps to make them fairly small, about 1 tablespoon of batter per pancake. Don't use as high a flame as you would for standard pancakes, or they won't cook through before they burn on the outside.
6. Serves 5 for breakfast.