For our wine tasting dinner last weekend, I wanted to make a few desserts so I could provide some variety for our guests. Even though I had already decided to make a rhubarb mascarpone mousse cake, I wanted to make sure I had something to suit every taste, especially because I wasn't familiar with everyone's food preferences. I thought that ice cream was a perfect dessert for a causal outdoor dinner on a pleasant day in June, and I was eager to try more the recipes from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home.
One recipe that had caught my eye early on was "Sweet Corn & Black Raspberry Ice Cream." I am a fan of all things corn, and to me, sweet corn is one of the highlights of summer. Plus, sweet corn is a staple of backyard barbecues, but we weren't actually serving any with dinner, so I thought a corn ice cream course would be perfect. Then I got the idea to pair the ice cream with Momofuku Milk Bar Corn Cookies -- which taste exactly like buttered, salted corn -- to make ice cream sandwiches.
The sweet corn ice cream recipe includes a black raspberry swirl, although Jeni also suggests using half raspberries and half blackberries if you can't get black raspberries. I was planning to make the raspberry/blackberry substitution, since black raspberries are rarely available. But I happened to see some lovely ones at the farmer's market, and so I was able to make the black raspberry sauce (black raspberries boiled with sugar, strained, and cooled). I was very glad I found the black raspberries, because the sauce had an incredible depth of flavor.
To make the corn ice cream, you cut slice the kernels off an ear of sweet corn and also extract the juices and remaining bits from the cob by running the back of a knife along it. You cook the corn kernels and juices with milk, cream, sugar, and corn syrup and boil the mixture for four minutes. (A version of the recipe that appeared in the New York Times also instructs you cook the corn cob along with the other ingredients; the version in the cookbook does not.) Then you strain it to remove the kernels, whisk in a slurry of corn starch mixed with milk, bring it back to a boil until thickened, and then whisk it into a mixture of cream cheese and a little salt. You chill the mixture in an ice bath, freeze it in an ice cream maker, and then layer it alternately with the black raspberry sauce in a container.
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I didn't want the ice cream sandwiches to be too big, so I baked the corn cookies smaller than usual; I used a #30 scoop, which yielded 24 cookies from a batch of dough. The ice cream was white, with dark purple streaks of the raspberry sauce -- there's no way anyone would have guessed that the ice cream was corn flavored just by looking at it. These ice cream sandwiches were incredibly delicious. The ice cream does in fact taste exactly like corn, the black raspberry sauce is insanely good, and the corn-black raspberry combination is surprisingly harmonious. The corn cookies and corn ice cream were perfectly paired. The only problem was that the cookies were a bit difficult to eat frozen, so the easiest way to eat a sandwich was to pull it apart and each half separately, as you might do with an Oreo.
There was something so whimsical and fun about these ice cream sandwiches. Eating one of them is tasting the very essence of summer!
Recipes:
One recipe that had caught my eye early on was "Sweet Corn & Black Raspberry Ice Cream." I am a fan of all things corn, and to me, sweet corn is one of the highlights of summer. Plus, sweet corn is a staple of backyard barbecues, but we weren't actually serving any with dinner, so I thought a corn ice cream course would be perfect. Then I got the idea to pair the ice cream with Momofuku Milk Bar Corn Cookies -- which taste exactly like buttered, salted corn -- to make ice cream sandwiches.
The sweet corn ice cream recipe includes a black raspberry swirl, although Jeni also suggests using half raspberries and half blackberries if you can't get black raspberries. I was planning to make the raspberry/blackberry substitution, since black raspberries are rarely available. But I happened to see some lovely ones at the farmer's market, and so I was able to make the black raspberry sauce (black raspberries boiled with sugar, strained, and cooled). I was very glad I found the black raspberries, because the sauce had an incredible depth of flavor.
To make the corn ice cream, you cut slice the kernels off an ear of sweet corn and also extract the juices and remaining bits from the cob by running the back of a knife along it. You cook the corn kernels and juices with milk, cream, sugar, and corn syrup and boil the mixture for four minutes. (A version of the recipe that appeared in the New York Times also instructs you cook the corn cob along with the other ingredients; the version in the cookbook does not.) Then you strain it to remove the kernels, whisk in a slurry of corn starch mixed with milk, bring it back to a boil until thickened, and then whisk it into a mixture of cream cheese and a little salt. You chill the mixture in an ice bath, freeze it in an ice cream maker, and then layer it alternately with the black raspberry sauce in a container.
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There was something so whimsical and fun about these ice cream sandwiches. Eating one of them is tasting the very essence of summer!
Recipes:
- "Corn Cookies" from Momofuku Milk Bar, by Christina Tosi.
- "Sweet Corn & Black Raspberry Ice Cream," from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home Jeni Britton Bauer, recipe available here from the New York Times.
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