You know that guy that never seems to know when the party is over? Well, in the party known as summertime, I’m that guy.

It’s been a few weeks since the official end of summer and, I’m still not ready to let go. The sun. The outdoor neighborhood cafes. The ease of throwing on my favorite tattered shorts and racing out of the door. With that said, I was beginning to embrace fall. But then came the setback. I was hit with a sight that screamed, “Don’t give up just yet!”

Walking around my neighbor, I saw it… a lone wild tomato plant growing in a patch of dirt.  A wild tomato plant?…growing in downtown Brooklyn?…in October?

It made me think, “If this little guy can struggle and hold on past his seasonal prime then surely I can join him in his one-man fight to save “Fun Under the Sun.’”

Later that night it hits me, “I’ll make ice cream.” I mean, there’s nothing that says summer like ice cream. And because I came up with this Quixotesque plan over a glass of vino, I was inspired to make a red wine ice cream.

A quick web search brought me to a 2004 NY Times recipe for red wine ice cream. I decided to tweak it a bit. It was too one dimensional for my taste. For a bit of sweetness, I decided to incorporate stewed blackberries. Also, I thought blackberries would bring out the berry flavor of the wine grapes.

This ice cream has a beautifully complex flavor profile. It’s sweet, creamy (it uses 9 egg yolks) and has a slight sourness to it (I’m assuming because of the tannins). The frozen blackberries add a pop of fruity flavor as well as a bit of texture. And at the risk of scaring someone of you away, the peppercorns and cinnamon sticks give the ice cream an almost undetectable hint of spice. Served with a drizzle of the blackberry syrup, it makes a deliciously atypical frozen treat.

For a moment, I forgot about the loss of summer. I was feeling good about my seasonal coup. Walking around my neighborhood a day later, I mentally dismiss people in their autumn jackets for giving up so soon.

I approach the spot of the tomato plant that so inspired me to join his seasonal battle. I’m not sure if was the cool autumn nights or the countless dogs who relieved themselves but, I was horrified to see that my tomato plant, my little mighty engine that could, had bitten the dust.

Today, I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt and light jacket. As Kenny Rogers once sang, “You gotta know when to hold. Know when to fold them.”

NOTE: I used the Spanish red wine, Grenache. If you can’t find it, any full body red will do. Since the recipe calls for 2 standard bottles of wine, I recommend that you buy one large 1.5 litter bottle. It will be cheaper and it’s not hard to find a decent bottle.

NOTE II: You may wind up with a bit too much ice cream batter for your maker. If this happens do not overfill your ice cream maker – it may not churn properly.

BLACKBERRY & RED WINE ICE CREAM (with Blackberry Syrup Topping)

Adapted from the NY Times

1 1/2 cups sugar (plus, 3 TBL)

1 pint blackberries

2 bottles full-bodied red wine

2 cinnamon sticks

1/2 TSP whole black peppercorns

2 cups milk

2 cups heavy cream

9 yolks

1/4 TSP kosher salt

1/8 TSP vanilla extract.

In a medium-sized saucepan over a medium high flame, add ¼ cup of sugar, blackberries and 3 tablespoons of water. Stirring occasionally, cook the blackberries until they have slightly broken down and released a good deal of their juices, about five minutes. Strain to separate juice and berries. Refrigerate the blackberries until they are completely cool. Add juice back to the saucepan and cook over medium heat until it thickens to a rich syrup, about 2 minutes. Refrigerate the syrup until it’s cool.

Pour wine into a large pot and bring to a simmer. Add cinnamon sticks and peppercorns. Simmer until the wine is reduced to 1 cup (it should take about 1 hour).

In a large pan, bring the milk, cream and half of the sugar to a boil and turn off heat. In a bowl, whisk together yolks and remaining sugar. Temper the yolks into the boiling milk by gradually whisking about 1 cup of milk into the yolks and adding this back into the pot with the remaining milk. Stir in the salt and the vanilla. Whisk in the reduced wine. Set pan over a bowl full of ice to cool. Pour the chilled ice cream base through a fine mesh strainer. Process the base in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Add stewed blackberries into the maker five minutes before stopping it. Freeze in the freezer for at least 2 hours before serving.

Serve ice cream with a drizzle of syrup over each serving.

Serves 8

You’re gonna have to pry it from the clutches of my cold dead hands.

Ok, admittedly that’s a tad bit dramatic. I’m just not ready to let summer go. And to demonstrate this defiance, I decided to make sorbet.

Actually I decided to make two different types of sorbets. And serve it with the most summery of fruit I could think of…melon. And top that with a very summery herb…mint (actually, mint sugar). You hear that mother nature? You’re not the boss of me.

Wow, now that I’ve gotten that totally irrational tirade out of my system, let’s talk dessert, y’all.

This will be my last culinary attempt to hold on to summer. So, I’m gonna make it a twofer: Mango and Raspberry Sorbets (with Mint Sugar).

I think both of these sorbets are amazing and could be served on their own, but there’s something with how they play off of each other that make them a perfect dessert combo.

Like a ripe raspberry, the Raspberry Sorbet is fresh, sweet and super tart. It just oozes summertime in your mouth. And then there’s the Mango Sorbet. It’s tropical and smooth with an almost creamy flavor.

In this case I decided to pair them with a cool slice of honeydew melon and a sprinkle of Mint Sugar. Both of these elements bring something to the table…they help to balance out the tartness of the sorbets. The Mint Sugar is sweet and minty cool. And the melon is sweet and refreshing.

NOTE: I usually add gelatin to sorbets. This time around I omitted the gelatin – neither recipe called for it. The texture of the Mango Sorbet was spot on. But the raspberry sorbet was a tad icy. I assume this is because unlike the mangos, raspberries are not fleshy and are almost entirely made of water.

The next time I try this recipe (and I definitely will), I will add gelatin to make sure that the final product has a smoother texture.

Enjoy!

MANGO SORBET (from Gourmet Magazine, July 1997)

4 ripe mangos (about 3 1/2 pounds total)

1 cup Simple Syrup

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or to taste

Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap.

Using a sharp knife, remove the 2 flat sides of each mango, cutting lengthwise alongside pit and cutting as close to pit as possible so that mango flesh is in 2 large pieces. With a spoon carefully scoop flesh from mango sides into a blender. With a knife cut remaining flesh from pit and add to blender. Add syrup and lime juice to blender and purée until smooth.

Freeze mango purée in an ice-cream maker according to manufacturers instructions. Freeze until hard, about 4 hours.

Yields about 6 cups

MINT SUGAR (Adapted from The Instant Cook by Donna Hay)

½ cup sugar

¼ cup finely chopped mint leaves

Place the sugar and mint in a food processor and process until well combines. Place in an air tight container and refrigerate until needed.

RASPBERRY SORBET (from MarthaStewart.com)

1 cup sugar

1 3/4 cups plus 4 teaspoons water

6 cups (1 2/3 pounds) raspberries

Bring sugar and 1 cup water to a boil in a large saucepan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves. Let syrup cool.

Pulse raspberries and remaining 3/4 cup plus 4 teaspoons water in a food processor until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve set in a deep bowl or a large glass measuring cup. Using a rubber spatula, gently press down on the mixture to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids.

Transfer raspberry puree to a deep bowl or airtight container. Add syrup, and stir until well combined. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Pour mixture into an ice cream maker, and freeze according to manufacturers’ instructions. Transfer sorbet to a large airtight container, and freeze for at least 2 hours.

[MY APOLOGIES: Due to a program glitch, subscribers may have received multiple notifications of this post. Yikes! Problem fixed. I was going to send another email apologizing for the multiple auto-emails but I figured you'd hunt me down if you got one more Ceramic Canvas email today. Sorry for the inconvenience.] Now on with the show…

I’d never had a bonbon in my life – nor had I really ever wanted to try one either. But that was before, this is now.

I’ve turned a new leaf. I had no idea what I was missing…But before I get to my life changing bonbon experience, let me take a moment for a brief commercial break.

Yesterday, the editors at Saveur online, named CeramicCanvas.com and our recipe for Double-Fried Sweet Potato Fries as a “Site We Love’ and ‘Best of the Web,” respectively. I want to thank them for the shout out and recognition. If you get a chance, check out the Saveur page or go directly to the recipe here.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program…bonbons.

Last week I got my hands on the cookbook, “Michael Mina. The Cookbook.” To me it’s more of a coffee table cookbook (you know, oversized, involved recipes and filled with stunning photos). It’s a truly beautiful book that inspires every time I pick it up. Thumbing through it the other day, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a photograph of bonbons.

The photograph featured an assortment of dark and milk chocolate bonbons, each using a sterling silver olive pick as a handle. Was it a little much? Yes. But I decided that I would have to give this impossibly pretentious presentation a try.

I had come across a recipe for Ginger Ice Cream a while back that I thought would be perfect for bonbons.

So, a plan was born. Bonbons (three varieties: bittersweet, milk and white chocolate) filled with Ginger Ice Cream.

I love them. As a matter of fact, after the first bite, it all of sudden became very clear why people would sit on their butts all day eating them…these babies are delicious.

My favorite was the bittersweet chocolate bonbon. The richness of the bittersweet chocolate worked well with the ginger ice cream.

Even on its own the Ginger Ice Cream is amazing. I’ll admit I was a little concern at first about putting diced crystallized ginger in the ice cream. But the sweet, slightly spicy taste of the ginger was a beautiful match for the creaminess and fat of the ice cream.

If you get a chance to try this ice cream as a bonbon or on its own, I highly suggest you give it a try.

Bon appetite!

BONBONS WITH GINGER ICE CREAM

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For the Bonbons

Adapted from Michael Mina The Cookbook

1 Recipe for Ginger Ice Cream

3/4 lbs chopped chocolate (bittersweet, milk and/or white, separated)

2 TBLS vegetable oil

cookie crumbs (optional)

Line a sheet pan with aluminum foil and place it in the freezer for an hour.

Working quickly with a melon baller, scoop the ice cream into twelve ½” round balls. Place the balls on the frozen sheet pan about 1” apart. In the ice cream gets too soft as you are working, return it to the freezer. Stick a sturdy toothpick in the center of each ice cream ball, making sure it stands up straight. Place the pan back in the freezer and freeze until very hard.

Melt the chocolate and the oil in the microwave. Stir until the chocolate is completely smooth and shiny. Pour into a small bowl and let cool slightly.

Using the toothpick as a handle, quickly dip the ice cream balls in the chocolate, turning to coat evenly. Let the excess chocolate drip back into the bowl. Set the bonbons on the sheet pan and return to the freezer until the chocolate shells harden, at least 5 minutes. If you wish, spread the cookie crumbs on the sheet pan. Transfer pan to the freezer until they are ready to serve. The bonbons can be made a day or two in advance.

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For the Ginger Ice Cream

Gourmet Magazine, November 1998

4 large egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup coarsely grated peeled fresh gingerroot

2 tablespoons water

2 cups half-and-half

1 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup crystallized ginger

In a large bowl lightly whisk yolks. In a 3-quart heavy saucepan cook sugar, fresh gingerroot, and water over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. Add half-and-half and bring to a simmer. Add hot half-and-half mixture to yolks in a slow stream, whisking, and pour into pan. Cook custard over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until a thermometer registers 170°F. (Do not let boil.)

Pour custard through a sieve into cleaned bowl and stir in cream and vanilla. Cool custard. Chill custard, its surface covered with plastic wrap, until cold, at least 3 hours, and up to 1 day.

Finely chop crystallized ginger. Freeze custard in an ice-cream maker, adding crystallized ginger three fourths of way through freezing process. Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden. Ice cream may be made 1 week ahead.

Makes about 1 quart

Fennel Ice Cream, Sugared Puff Pastry & Caramel

I want to end Volume I of the ‘Dinner Party Chronicles’ with everyone’s favorite. So, Chapter III is all about dessert!

First, let me just say upfront, the dessert almost didn’t happen. Up until the morning of the dinner party, I still had no idea what I was going to serve for dessert. I wasn’t inspired. It was 3pm, I had already done my grocery shopping for the day (actually, I had gone twice) and I was not about to go back.

To say I was a tad frustrated would not be too far off the mark. I was halfway thinking of serving cookies and milk in an old fashion jug and proclaim it to be a ‘retro’ dessert. People were arriving soon, there was no dessert, the other dishes weren’t done and the house was a mess.

Honestly, this chaos is not all that unusual….No matter how much time I give myself, there is always disorder before dinner parties. The kitchen is always a disaster zone and for the life of me, I don’t see how it’s all going to come together in the end. But somehow, two minutes before the first guest rings the door bell, it just does.

Back to dessert. I had ruled out the cookies and milk thing…I’ll save that for another desperate time.

I decided to make ice cream. An amazing fennel ice cream that was published in Gourmet magazine (I found it at Smitten Kitchen) immediately came to mind. I had made it before and loved it – sinfully delicious and thanks to the high fat content, an even more sinful and creamy texture.

Now, I wanted to add another element to complete plate. I remembered that I had store-bought puff pastry in the freezer and caramel that I had made for some recently baked pecan sandies.

With that decided, it was time to start cooking.

If you missed the first two chapters on this dinner party series, here’s a recap of the menu:

THE MENU

Pre-Dinner Cocktails: Lemongrass Caipirinhas

Appetizer: Duo of Lamb (Ravioli & Seared Loin) with Garden Scapes

Soup: Cream of Leek & Parsnip Soup with Lardons

Main Coarse: Port/Orange Sauce Braised Duck Breast & Asparagus Salad

Dessert: Fennel Ice Cream on Sugared Puff Pastry with Caramel Sauce

And if you are not familiar with the ‘Dinner Party Chronicles’ here’s a rundown: The ‘Chronicles’ is a feature of the Ceramic Canvas that recaps the successes AND failures of dinner party menus and recipes hosted in our home. It is divided into volumes and chapters. Volume refers to the actual date of the dinner party. And each chapter (i.e. posting) will focus one specific dish of that night’s meal.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program…dessert.

Before guests arrived I cut out the puff pastry, sugared them, put them on a baking sheet and stored them in the fridge. At that point, all I had to do was pop them in the oven in the middle of the entrée course and they were ready to come out just in time for dessert. They were still warm and flakey when dessert was served – which was ideal because you have the nice ice cold ice cream laying on top of a warm piece of buttery, sweet puff pastry pillow. As you dove your spoon down through the ice cream you could here a audible cracking as the fork broke through the flakey puff pastry. Top that off with homemade caramel. Nice!

It was a nice sweet cap to a fun meal. Our guests had no idea that they were that close to having Keebler cookies and milk.

NOTES: There is no recipe for the puff pastry – it’s store bought. Just thaw it out and cut with a cookie/ravioli cutter. You can make your own but they now have pretty decent pre-made puff pastry dough. Look in your grocer’s freezer section.

The caramel recipe and photographic step-by-step can be found in the recent pecan sandies recipe posting.

FENNEL ICE CREAM (Originally published in Gourmet Magazine; Oct 2007)

1 2/3 cups heavy cream

2 teaspoons fennel seeds, crushed

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sugar, divided

4 large egg yolks

Bring cream and fennel seeds just to a simmer in a small heavy saucepan, then cover and let steep about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring milk, 1/2 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt to a simmer in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring.

Whisk together yolks and remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a large bowl, then add milk mixture in a slow stream, whisking. Return mixture to medium saucepan and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until mixture coats back of spoon and registers 175°F on an instant-read thermometer (do not let boil). Immediately strain custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a metal bowl, then quick-chill by setting bowl in an ice bath and stirring occasionally until cool, about 15 minutes.

Strain fennel cream through fine-mesh sieve into custard, pressing on solids. Continue to chill in ice bath until custard is very cold, then freeze in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, about 1 hour.

Makes about one quart

Fresh Coconut & Cachaça Sorbet

Spring is barely here and I’m already nostalgic about winter. I was on the phone with my aunt (who lives in my home state, Alabama – please no jokes about Alabama, especially if you’re from Mississippi). Anyway, we were talking about the warmer weather and how she is already missing her favorite winter fruit. Pomegranates. Which reminded of this interesting Turkish pomegranate/vodka sorbet recipe that I had recently come across.

Inspiration hits. So, I head to the grocery store…

When I got there I was surprised to see that there was not one pomegranate in sight. Convinced that the store had to have pomegranates somewhere (I mean, it’s one of those God-awful mega-supermarkets), I asked a stock guy where they kept them. Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: Excuse me, I can’t find any pomegranates. Can you tell me where they are?

Stock Guy: We don’t have any. But we do have pomegranate juice concentrate.

Me (Ignoring the concentrate nonsense): Are you out of fresh pomegranates?

Stock Guy: I wouldn’t say that we are out of them. You know they’re not in season, right?

Now, I love fresh, regional, seasonal produce as much as the next guy but seriously. What is this, 1709? They have airplanes now. Produce is shipped from all over the globe these days.

Me (pointing to the pineapples that were stacked next to the stock guy): Really, so I guess those pineapples were grown down the street here in New York, huh?

No pomegranates. But at this point I was determined to soldier on. I needed a Plan B.

Looking around, I spotted my new inspiration…coconuts (don’t even get me started on how pomegranates are not in season but somehow they had piles of tropical coconuts).

Okay, coconut sorbet it is. But what would I balance it with? Vodka didn’t make sense with coconut. And then Inspiration 2.0 hit me…I’ll pair it with cachaça.

Cachaça is a Brazilian liquor made from sugarcane juice. It has a very unique sweet flavor that I think serves as a perfect tropical under note to the relatively mild coconut – I know, could have written that in a more pretentious way? (Note: Although cachaça is a liquor, some bottlers have oddly named it a rum. So if you don’t find it with the liquors try the rum section.)

I’d never written a sorbet recipe before. But after a few tweaks (and trials), I think the resulting recipe strikes a good balance. The sorbet is light, refreshing and not too sweet. No one will be able to name the hit of cachaça – they’ll just notice something different that they can’t quite put their finger on.

Oh yeah, you are going to have some left over coconut. I’ll figure out a use for that in a later post.

FRESH COCONUT & CACHACA SORBET
This sorbet contains fresh shredded coconuts. Biting into the coconuts releases an extra hit of the natural, milky coconut flavor into the sorbet. If you prefer a more tradition sorbet without fruit just strain the shredded coconut out of the base after the steeping process. If you strain out the coconut, I recommend using a cheesecloth to squeeze out as much of the coconut juice as possible into the base before adding the cachaça and lime juice.

2 coconuts (apprx. 2 lbs each – see yield notes below)
1 cup water
1 gelatin pack
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup syrup
1.5 oz Cachaça
½ tsp lime juice

Using nail and hammer punch three holes in each coconut to drain them of their juice (should yield about 1 cup per coconut). After ‘juicing’ the coconuts split one open to expose the inner flesh. Carefully carve out the flesh in chunks. Using a coarse grater, shred the flesh of one coconut (should yield about 2 cups in shredded coconut).  Set juice and shredded coconut aside.

Mix milk, water, gelatin in med saucepan and let stand until gelatin has dissolved (about 5 minutes). Add sugar, syrup and ¾ cup of the shredded coconut. Bring mixture to a boil just to dissolve the sugar. Stir, take off heat and let coconut steep, covered, for 25 minutes.

Stir in Cachaça and lime juice. After the mixture has completely cooled, freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instruction.

Meanwhile, dry toast the remaining cup of shredded coconut in a nonstick pan over medium heat, stirring periodically until the flakes are golden brown (about 7 minutes).

Yield Notes: One 2 lb coconut yields about 1cup liquid & 2 cups shredded coconut