Baklava Ice Cream

A few months ago, Karla and I hosted an elaborate 3 course meal with mini spinach pies as appetizers and sliced/stuffed eggplant beautifully fanned out for the main course. As the menu started coming together over the weeks leading up to the dinner, we realized that the flavors we were putting together kind of had a Mediterranean flair. So, that’s the direction we decided to go with for the dessert course as well. The obvious choice was Baklava, but we wanted something quicker and easier. What could be quicker/easier than a tub of store bought ice cream!? Well, being the control freaks that we are (we are both Controls Engineers by the way), we couldn’t go with a dish that we had no control over. So we decided to start with the pre-made ice cream and then tweak it to fit the menu.

Baklava is incredibly delicious - crispy, sweet and nutty! Add to it the creaminess of ice cream, and you have the perfect dessert! Using frozen Phyllo sheets and pre-made ice cream, this beautiful dessert can be put together very quickly, and is most certainly a crowd pleaser.

Ingredients:

Vanilla ice cream

Phyllo sheets (use 5 sheets to make 6 cups)

Melted butter

Pistachios and/or any other nuts you like - crushed.

Honey

Heat oven to 350F.

Lay down one phyllo dough sheet on a cookie sheet. Brush the sheet with melted butter, and carefully place another sheet on top. Repeat until you have stacked 5 sheets. Cut into 6 squares. Repeat the process if you’d like to make more cups.

 

Grease a muffin pan, and place one phyllo sheet square in each cup, pressing down with your hands to form a pastry cup. Bake for ~10-15 until the phyllo cups are golden brown. Let the cups cool completely before serving.

 

While the cups are baking, place another sheet of phyllo dough on a cookie sheet and bake it in the oven until golden brown and crispy. Once cooled, crush the baked phyllo sheet and mix it with the crushed pistachios.

Take one scoop of vanilla ice cream, and roll it in the crushed mixture of nuts and crispy pastry. Place it on a plate or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat until you have enough scoops of ice cream, and place the coated ice cream balls in the freezer until ready to serve.

Place a phyllo cup on a plate, add a prepared scoop of ice cream, drizzle some honey on top, and dig in!

~Gayatri

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Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Saturday, March 5, 2016

Chocolate Cups

Recently I bought a Cusinart ice cream maker, which has become my favorite kitchen appliance. And if you like ice cream as much as I do, you’ve got to have one. The ice cream maker bowl is kept frozen until needed, so it does not require ice, and makes ice cream in 15-20 minutes. It’s also very easy to clean! So far I've only used it to make vanilla ice cream (will post the recipe soon), but it can be used for making healthier alternatives like frozen yogurts and sorbets too. I’ve already tried out two different ways of making ice cream (with and without eggs) and I’m planning to do a lot more experimenting with the taste and texture….so if you love ice cream, let me know what flavor you would like me to experiment with ;-).

Although this post is not about ice cream, here is a fun way of serving it. These chocolate cups can be used to serve ice cream, pudding or any other dessert that goes well with chocolate. (Recipe source: Crazy for Chocolate, published by Bay Books).

Ingredients:

Dark chocolate chips (1 packet of 12 oz. chocolate makes about 18 cups).

1. Melt the chocolate chips.

2. Cut squares of plastic wrap and spread about a tablespoon of melted chocolate on the plastic wrap using the back of a spoon to form a circle.

3. Carefully pick up the plastic wrap holding the ends and gently place over an inverted styrofoam cup (chocolate side up).

4. Place the cup in the freezer for a couple minutes till the chocolate hardens. Remove from the freezer and carefully peel off the plastic wrap.

The chocolate cup is ready for serving your favorite dessert. The cups can be stored in an air-tight container in the freezer.

~Gayatri