Author Archives: gshans

Ari & Matt’s Dulce de Limeche

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The New York Times featured a recipe for alfajores (Argentine sandwich cookies filled with dulce de leche and coconut) a couple weeks ago that also discussed making one’s own dulce de leche. This reminded me of a recipe I had come up with a few years ago, in part due to my love of food from Latin America. It’s got two classic flavors from that cuisine creating a mix of tart and sweet.

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After three hours of boiling and two hours of cooling, what treasures lie within?

My friends Arianna and Matt just had a very cute baby boy and, because most people with six-month-old kids don’t have time to cook, I brought them some of the latest batch. And not just because they lived in Argentina for a while.

Oh, and the alfajores turned out pretty well too.

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Two great tastes that taste great together.

Ari and Matt’s Dulce de Limeche Continue reading →

Lauren’s Chili Vanilla with Lemon Curd

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I have been absent for longer than I had planned — a trip to New York and work busyness has prevented me from writing up all the installments bouncing around my mind. Happily, I have been able to make some new recipes, so we’re not lacking in ideas around here.

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Lauren’s favorite lemon curd.

The New York trip was in celebration of my dear friend Lauren’s baby shower. I’d never actually been to one so it was a novel experience, and a relaxed one (no stupid games, very little pomp). Lauren has always loved my lemon curd, which I frequently add to cakes and cookies, but I’d never actually done it as an ice cream swirl. The trip got my mind going — you’d want a basic flavor, but with a subtle flavor to make it not just lemon + vanilla. Enter the chilies. They add a kick, but not an unwelcome one. People who hate spicy food probably shouldn’t try this, but the mix of spice, sweetness, and tart — complete with the richness of the vanilla, use seeds and good extract if possible — make it an unusual, addictive combination. The friends who tried it while watching the Oscars very much enjoyed it. Continue reading →

Kitty’s Raspberry Rosewater Sorbet with Pistachios

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I’m not a fan of Valentine’s Day for all the typical reasons, but my friend Catherine (aka Kitty B) suggested a flavor that sounded very promising: rosewater and raspberry. Perfect for the holiday that we all love to hate. With the Middle Eastern element of rosewater I decided to toss in some chopped toasted pistachios, because why not?

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Pure pink.

 

This is a very simple, yet elegant sorbet that you can do a lot of different things with (different berries, flavors, or nuts being the most obvious modifications). Rosewater can be found at specialty stores pretty easily, and a little goes a long way — if you find it too fragrant, you can dial it back to two teaspoons.

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You Can’t Spell “Bernie” without BNR

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Habeas Custard doesn’t believe in political parties (don’t get me started on nationalism, either), but today is the New Hampshire primary and, interestingly, ice cream has become part of the race — at least on the Democratic side. Ben Cohen, one of the founder’s of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, has begun a fundraiser for Bernie Sanders based on income inequality. It’s a version of mint chocolate chip ice cream in which the chocolate is in the form of a disc at the top of a pint, and the mint ice cream is at the bottom. In a metaphor for the 1% and the rest of us, you have to break up the chocolate 1% disc and mix it into the rest of the ice cream.

Another Ben (also known as BNR), a friend of HC, contacted me about this and I responded with a version of “Well, anyone can do that.” It’s not very difficult. Moreover I don’t believe in gimmicks (beyond the gimmick of naming your ice cream blog after a legal term and then never discussing the law despite being a lawyer) — and this reeked of gimmickry. Plus, it’s basically crème brûlée but with hard chocolate, and then mixing it up? Please. That’s more trouble than it’s worth, and messy, as seen in the video. I’m not a Coldstone Creamery.

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All you need: base, chocolate, and mint.

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Jason’s Burnt Blood Orange & Almond

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I’ve long been a fan of Tim Mazurek’s blog Lottie + Doof, which is a very thoughtful series on food, culture, and how we talk about eating in the U.S. His style was in some ways an inspiration for my own tone here, and I frequently make his recipes (in particular, the ginger beer, which is a staple in my refrigerator). He also has a great eye, as demonstrated by Lottie + Doof’s photography, and the black bowls pictured below were recommended by him in a gift guide.

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Raw ingredients in goth bowls

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Robot Coffee

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If the last entry was a play on a BiRite classic, this one is a reinvention of one of Humphry Slocombe’s best-known flavors: my version of their Blue Bottle Vietnamese Iced Coffee.

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#rivalry (photo by AM)

In SF, Humphry Slocombe is the punk rock analogue to BiRite’s mainstream power pop (how’s that for a belabored analogy?). I actually first learned of them from the New York Times Magazine, because I am not cool. Humphry Slocombe does many weird flavors (although their flavors have gone a bit more mainstream in the last few years, to my mind), many of which I love and many of which I love to make (Rosemary’s Baby and Roasted White Chocolate Lavender among them). Continue reading →

GH’s Faux-canelas

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An update! HC’s friend Charlie (who got married in the last post, L.A. Story) wrote to tell me that he was looking up a Jeni’s recipe and that it used cream cheese. This would explain the consistency that I found so unusual! (I corroborated this with HC’s friend Joe, who among other things was once a pastry chef, who agreed with me.) Mystery solved — maybe.

On to today’s installment. Bi-Rite is one of the Bay Area’s treasures, a grocery store and ice cream shop with two locations (one near Dolores Park, the other near Alamo Square). The line for the Bi-Rite Creamery can extend down the block, in an archetypal display of our local love for queuing.* I love a lot of their flavors, particularly Crème Brûlée and Brown Sugar with Ginger Caramel, but Ricanelas (cinnamon with snickerdoodles) is also very good.

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L.A. Story

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Habeas has been a little quiet lately. You can blame travel, work, and a slight cold. On the upside, the travel took me to L.A. for a wedding over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend — and allowed me to try a couple new ice cream flavors.

First, I had a fun expedition to Grand Central Market, which has changed a lot since I last went in 2013. There’s an outpost of Santa Barbara’s McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams there, an outfit I hadn’t heard of. I ordered a split* of Cardamom Gingersnap and Eureka Lemon & Marionberries (see below). The texture was good, but I liked the former more than the latter — the lemon wasn’t really working for me.

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I hope you guys like ice cream shot with Dutch tilts, because you’d better get used to it.

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Churning and Chilling

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This installment is most relevant to those of you who’ve chosen to use the KitchenAid attachment. I’m not exactly sure how the standalone ice cream makers work, except that science is involved.

The KitchenAid attachment comes with four pieces. First, the bowl — plastic, double-walled, with a chemical in between the walls that I believe is also in freezer packs. Never put this in the dishwasher. Also, if you see blue fluid leaking from anywhere, that means the seal is broken and unfortunately you’ll have to replace the entire bowl. Second, a plastic white circle that is the adapter seating for some stand mixer bases. Third, the dasher — which you put in the middle of the bowl. Fourth, the adapter for the top of the mixer, so that the dasher can turn with the motor of the stand mixer.

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Mona’s Lime Sorbet with Candied Ginger

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My mom’s reaction to my giving her the credit for my interest in cooking was typical for our family (“Why did you say I was the reason?!”). In our family we’re not great at compliments. As I told her, “You know, some parents would be happy about their children given them credit, even if it wasn’t deserved.”

I spent four years in grad school in Ann Arbor (#goblue) and one of my favorite spots to hang out was Zingerman’s — the famous deli, specialty food store, and café. I spent many hours there studying intellectual property and technology policy. One of my favorite Zingerman’s traditions is that many of their sandwiches are named after different people — something I’m going to adopt here.

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