Maple Oatmeal Raisin Ice Cream

At Elon we have a local ice cream placed called Smitty's that makes a killer oatmeal ice cream. So of course, immediately upon tasting it for the first time I knew I had to try and make it at home. I also happen to have developed an oatmeal addiction this year and have eaten it almost every day for breakfast since August...no idea how I haven't gotten sick of it yet, but there it is. I finally got around to making this ice cream and - i'm not exaggerating - this is hands down the BEST ice cream I have made so far. It's amazing; not too sweet, perfectly creamy and just downright dope. UGH it's just...too good. like jeez louis my mouth is watering just thinking about it. AND once again, its pretty dang easy to make too and could potentially involve ingredients that you already have lying around...apart from the heavy cream - that's a zinger. 

Also this is random, but for some reason I have never been able to make 1/3 look like ¼...why is that? It has been annoying me for YEARS. If anyone knows that the deal is with that PALEASE help a sistah out...

Oatmeal Raisin Ice Cream Base 

Ingredients 

2 cups milk 

4 tsp. cornstarch 

1 ¼ cup heavy cream

1/3 cup white sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons maple syrup

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ tsp. and one pinch salt 

3 tablespoons cream cheese

½ cup toasted rolled oats, lightly processed 

*sweetened raisins 

Sweetened Raisins:

½ cup raisins 

¼ cup water

2 tablespoons sugar

For the Ice Cream base: 

In one small bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup of milk and the cornstarch

Place the 3 tablespoons of cream cheese in a bowl and set aside.

Open plastic bag with edges folded over set over an ice bath

In a 4-quart saucepan, add the remaining milk, heavy cream, sugars, maple syrup and salt. Whisk together until somewhat incorporated

Over medium high heat, cook the mixture until it comes to a rolling boil. Then let boil for 4 minutes.

Pour in the cornstarch slurry and the oatmeal and mix well. Bring back to a boil and cook for 2 more minutes then remove from heat. Stir frequently so the oatmeal gets fully incorporated.

With your small measuring cup, scoop out about 1/4 cup or more of the hot mixture and pour into the cream cheese bowl. Mix very well and then pour it back into the main pot. Stir well until thick.

Pour the hot cream into the plastic bag over the ice bath. Let sit for at least 30 minutes or until completely cold. If you don't want to freeze right away, you can also put the plastic bag in your fridge for up to 3 days.

To prepare the sweetened raisins: 

Soak the water and raisins in the unheated saucepan for about 15 minutes. Add the sugar and cook over medium-low heat. Stir frequently to prevent burning, until most of the water/syrup has been absorbed - about 5-7 minutes. Remove from the heat, drain out remaining liquid and let cool. 

Freezing the ice cream:

freeze according to your ice cream makers instructions and add the raisins 2 minutes before it's finished. I had to break them apart with my hands first so they wouldn't form a big raisin clump.

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

I have actually been dying to make cinnamon raisin swirl bread for quite some time now. I had just been putting it off and putting it off yadda yadda so FINALLY I made it. Sure it's good. But is it - get this loaf in my stomach now - good? probably not. But then again, it's like fancy toast, not like moist fudge-in-stuff bread (sounds good though, right?) Making bread is honestly one of the most satisfying things to make. Its a time consuming process but just watching the bread rise is so fulfilling. So I get amped about risen bread dough, so what? No honestly though its actually cool. It actually doubles in size! aaand if I don't eat it quickly enough, I can make homemade homemade french toast. I get to add that extra "homemade" cause I didn't purchase my bread via the bread isle. Well yes I did, but I didn't make french toast with it.

I used a recipe from my favorite baking cookbook "the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook" which my dad and step mom gave me for my 14th birthday. It was my first very own cookbook and I use it constantly. I basically trust every recipe in that cookbook (minus the strawberry buttercream. it like actually sucks don't make it.) So if you are gonna buy a cookbook about baking, Baking Handbook is the one. cause it's just so handy!


I actually have to change some things around though because cutting it in half kinda fudged the consistency a bit. So basically I could just take cred for this bad boy but no one would believe that I pulled a recipe like this out of thin air so.....

 Ingredients 
FOR THE DOUGH 

 (note I cut the recipe in half because I only had one loaf pan and also zero need for two loaves of cinnamon raisin bread)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast (which is a half a packet - this took some time to figure out...)

1 cup warm milk (I did I minute but its a mixed bag really)

4 cups all purpose flour

4 tablespoons of unsalted butter 

1/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 1/4 teaspoon salt 

3/4 cup raisins (Martha say's less but I couldn't resist) 
1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon 
vegetable oil to grease the bowl and plastic wrap (or if your ghetto like me a large plastic bag because I keep forgetting to get plastic wrap at the grocery store)

FOR THE FILLING:

3/4 cup sugar
1 egg ( I would say a half but that's so just use what you need and ditch the rest) 


Directions

1. the dough: whisk the warm milk and the yeast together in a large bowl. Then add all of the other dough ingredients and blend with an electric mixture until all of the ingredients look well combined (about 3 minutes) and then continue to blend until the dough forms a uniform ball (or something like it) so about 6 or so minutes more - I realized that using a hand held mixer for this actually sucks. It just isn't the same. Unfortunately I don't have 400 hunded plus to blow on a swanky kitchenaid though so I just had to make do!

2. Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface and gradually need in the raisins and cinnamon until they are combined and well distributed. Place the dough ball into a greased bowl and cover with greased plastic wrap (or, in my case, a plastic bag) and leave in a warm place for about an hour. THIS IS WHERE IT DOUBLES IN SIZE. so exciting. my favorite part. (I like the microwave, if it hasn't been used recently. probably cause papa bear bruns puts it there)

3. This part I'm just gonna tell you exactly what Martha says, cause I have no idea if I actually did this part correctly...."Return the dough to a lightly floured work surface, and pat into a round. Fold in the following manner: Fold the bottom third of the dough up, the top third down, and the right and left sides over, tapping the dough after each fold to release excess flour, and pressing down to seal. Return the dough to the bowl, seam side down."

aight back to the reel cook...

before the rise

4. Return the dough to that flour work area (which I have actually yet to clean. sorry Courtney) and roll it out into a large rectangle. (i'm not gonna get into measurements cause honestly, who's counting?) Fold 2 sides of the rectangle about an inch deep. Cover the dough with a light layer of the egg wash (I didn't have a pastry brush so guess what? I used my hand) Then sprankle the cinnamon sugar blend all over.

after the rise

5. Roll the dough into a log and press in the sides so that it fits nicely into your loaf pan, making to to liberally cover the pan in vegetable oil so the loaf actually comes out once it has been baked! (mines sooo crappy. its an investment clearly and I didn't make it.)

6. Then let it rise again! (and don't forget to cover it in plastic) During this time you can begin to preheat your oven to 425.

 7. FINALLY you can pop that sucker in the oven and let it bake for 20 minutes. Then loosely cover it in tin foil and rotate the pan so it bakes evenly and the top doesn't burn.

After the bake

8. When the bread is finished let it sit for a while before slicing in. (but apparently you don't have to wait for this particular bread. however I've been told to never do that with bread so I decided to wait it out)

could I have given you any more angles? yes, I actually could have.

Blueberry Muffins

So it's officially my first week in our new apartment - our being myself and Courtney Cooper, the girl in basically all of  my recent facebook pictures (something we decided to improve upon this upcoming year). The apartment is so nice and the kitchen is amazing. I wanted to make something for Courtney and her family before they got here so I made cookies and muffins (I had a lot of free time after my two days full of moving). I wanted to made bread also but harry tits (aka Harris Teeter) was out of active dry yeast. lame.

Anyway, I wasn't very creative with this recipe because I don't consider myself a muffin expert (apart from my muffin top leftover from this summer slash middle school) so I just used a recipe from good ole allrecipes.com that I altered a lil bit. I mean 5,013 people said it was good so why bother trying to drastically change it, right? They were really good and I would probably make them again, but as embarrassed as I am to say it... the Colonnades dining hall at Elon makes them better (when they are warm and fresh that is). I'm pretty sure they cheat and they can't really be compared but i'm pretty tight with them dining hall ladies so maybe I can get the inside scoop on their recipe. I think this is the first time since like lower school that I have gotten to know the dining hall ladies better than the ones health center at boarding school. I practically lived at the Health Center. Those women were like my second family. I went so much my sickness folder was almost as thick as Caroline Moxley's (I'm just kidding Caroline I have no idea how thick your folder was).But Sue and I have developed a friendship at Collonades (she's the sweet old lady missing a lot of teeth?) . We share a common name. It's a quirky kind of friendship.

I also just realized how much I like using parenthesis. I'm assuming it's because i'm not a swell writer and I have trouble staying on one topic at a time. Sorry bout it (p.s. we hate that expression. it makes no sense).