OT needing ice cream experts

Our pure vanilla extract more than tripled in price some time ago. I use a lot of it in baking. Ouch! I also heard that there was a major crop failure that drove up the prices. I wish I had stocked up before that happened. Kinda like gasoline prices..... triple ouch!

Leslie & The Furbabies >> I suspect that vanilla essence is stronger. The stuff in the grocery

If you use enough berries to fill a one liter measure that would probably work just fine. At my house berries are measured by the splint, pony, pint, bucket, and "I reckon another handful"

NightMist

I'm so glad you pointed that out, Marcella. It just could be that our Blue Jays will permit me to have one cup of berries. I could ask. Polly

"Marcella Peek" wrote > Except the recipe is

Howdy!

Yep, what Polly said. About 4 cups of berries,loosely packed.

Btw, the sweetener, esp. the table sugar and Splenda sugar substitute, helps bring out the juice in the berries (I sugar the berries a few hours before using, let it sit to bring up the juice, let all the ingredients make friends), so I don't use much if any liquid. IF I add liquid (to sorbet or cobbler/pie) I add a little white grape or apple juice. Or rum. I add rum to the blender pitcher along w/ the berries & sweetener & ice, make a nice, low-sweet frozen daiquiri. I have my priorities ;-D Go for it, Shirley!

R/Sandy --home from Whole Foods w/ a whole side of salmon, ready for an evening of quilting & good eats ;-D (I'll toast to you, Donna in Idaho) p.s. Whole Foods has the best roasted, salted sunflower seeds (in shell)

I would presume that how much vanilla you use would depend on how good your vanilla is. The extracts have gotten rather dear.

So far as ice cream, I don't have a proper ice cream freezer so when the madness takes me I have to keep putting it in the freezer and taking it out again and beating the heck out of it with the mixmaster. Totally worth it. When I don't want to use proper cream, I just take my regular ice cream recipe and make it with evaporated milk instead. It isn't as rich as that made with real cream, but it makes DH feel holy. Me, I'm a sinner from way back. We recently tried a tin of powdered eggs from the place we get our gluten flour. LOTS lower fat than fresh eggs. They work fine in baking. I'm going to get me another tin and try some custards with it. If that works, well then frozen custard will not be far off.

NightMist

Howdy!

Much of the honey sold in the stores in the U.S. is processed, heated, takes out most of the taste and the health benefits. "Good" honey is more pure, tastes like whatever crop the bees were working (clover, orange, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber, lemon-- just a few that I've tasted at home). Best health benefits are from "local" honey, from w/in a few dozen miles of your home. Some beekeepers will try to keep the particular honeys in separate batches, others will dump it all in together; the big guys like SueBee are dumpers, less concerned w/ where it's from, how it used to taste. The lighter honeys give you more sweetness than flavor. If you see a beekeeper set up on the side of the road, selling her/his wares, stop and have a sample, taste the difference. Cheers!

R/Sandy-- along w/ carpentry my dad was a beekeeper (for about 25 yrs.); damned hard work, beekeeping (no stings for him, tho')

I am a fan of the PBS show America's Test Kitchen. A while back they did a taste test on vanilla extract because they had so many letters asking about all the TV chefs touting the importance of using only the BEST, PURE vanilla extract.

They found that in plain sugar cookies 48 of the 50 testers couldn't tell the difference between imitation vanilla extract and pure vanilla extract. In the second taste test using a plain white cake recipe it was 46 out of 50 but the 4 that said they could taste the difference were different from the two in the cookie test. When doing the taste test by sipping the liquid from a spoon it was *almost* 50/50 as to whether the imitation or pure extract was better, but Schilling Imitation Vanilla Extract squeaked by in first place, go figure. Their conclusion was.....it makes no discernable difference in baking, use what you want. The only warning they gave was using the clear vanilla flavoring produced in Mexico; apparently various unpronounceable industrial solvents and lot of artificial flavorings are used to make this stuff and there is no actual vanilla anything in it. I believe the comment was, "Good grief, my mechanic uses that for engine degreaser!"

Val

I checked the phone number and they are still at the same address. I tried ringing but got her Dh on answer phone. I did it twice but got no replies. I also checked the public records and that states she is still at the same address. I wondered if she was ill but her DH could have emailed me. Shirley

In message , Pat in Virginia writes

hmmm, honey is the one thing taken from me when i got home cuz they said it was not a processed food. i had no idea so said nothing. it was one of those tiny individual portions you get with breakfast. glad it wasnt a full jar of honey, that would of been annoy'n for sure. hmmm, come to think of it, i've taken honey out of nz bought at the duty free shop in the airport, i'd assume that too is not processed. odd how its ok to take it into another country but not bring it here. very strange that is. i might need to research that one. makes no sense to me at all. should keep me busy and out of everyones hair for a while. cheers, jeanne

I paid $2.75 each for 2 bourbon vanilla beans* at the food coop this afternoon. Then I went across the street to the liquor store and bought a half-pint of cheap vodka. Took them home, put the beans in the vodka and put it in the cupboard. Should be ready to use by the time I start Christmas baking.

• From "Bourb> Our pure vanilla extract more than tripled in price some time ago. I use a

DD gave me a relatively inexpensive icecream maker which is wonderful. It is a Magimix Glacier, and has a bowl with the wall filled with liquid which freezes when you leave it in the freezer overnight. You then take it out the freezer and fit the lid which is a motor driving a mixer paddle, on top. You then turn on the motor and pour in the chilled icecream mix. After between 12 and 20 minutes the paddle has difficulty getting through the now frozen mix, and you just decant it into a plastic box and put in the freezer to finish off.

It works very well and was 1/4 of the price of the big ones which do their own freezing without having to freeze the bowl first.

My favourite receipe is just sugar, cream and strawberries. Haven't got the recipe near the computer, it is in the room where the cats have been put to bed, and I'm not risking letting them out to play Can't catch me!

Howdy!

Try it, Jeanne. Mix up a batch, put it in the 'fridge for a couple of hours; it won't be as fluffy as the machine product, but it's good and it's COLD! And that rum & berry slushy is good, too. ;-D

R/Sandy-- wondering "what is this stuff called low-fat whipping cream"? isn't it the fat that makes the cream?

I've wondered about that, too. Also the stuff they call "fat-free half-and-half". I thought half-and-half had less fat than whipping cream, but more fat than whole milk; how can it be fat-free? :)

Julia in MN

How much are a splint and a pony? I totally understand pint, bucket, and "I reckon another handful" Debra in VA See my quilts at

Speaking of madness, my little ice cream maker recipe book included directions for chocolate mint: a box of After Eight mints plus a pint of whipping cream. Melt the former, stir into the latter, and freeze. Talk about criminal indulgence! Roberta in D

"NightMist" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@news.madbbs.com...

Oh my....... (copious drooling going on here.) How wickedly indulgent!. It's prolly a good thing that I am housebound right now..... LOL

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

Yes, it does sound gorgeous, doesn't it - and easy too!!! Easily found ingredients and no measuring out. I know just where the low-fat double cream is in our supermarket!!! And we have a box of After Eights each week! So, as it's summer ... ... >g< . In message , Leslie & The Furbabies in MO. writes