Blueberry Ice Cream and Yogurt Cake

On to Dorie's recipes...

We had some folks over for dinner a few nights ago.  I made shrimp and grits, fennel and celery salad, and swiss chart for dinner.  For dessert, I wanted to do something easy (I pretty much say that all the time).  The blueberries are pretty good right now, so I looked back through my copy of Butter Sugar Flour Eggs by Gale Gand for her blueberry ice cream recipe, which I made years ago (7, to be exact).  

I remember that it was a delicious recipe, but this time all I could see was that it required 9 egg yolks. While I'm sure this high yolk content contributed to the deliciousness and that apparently I wasn't daunted by it the first time, I decided that I would find another recipe rather than end up with 9 egg whites in a ziploc bag in my freezer, their reappearance in another recipe all but questionable (although I know Big Apple Nosh would find something to do with them. Shame on me.).

So I turned to Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours and was happy to find that she also had a blueberry ice cream recipe. My beloved Dorie. I am so creepy.

Like the strawberry cheesecake ice cream, this recipe is great because it doesn't start from an egg custard base.  There is a tiny bit of cooking involved, but "cooking" is overstating it. You'll see. 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup blueberries – fresh or frozen (if frozen, thaw and drain) (I used fresh because they're in season)
• 1/3 cup sugar (or more to taste)
• pinch of salt
• grated zest and juice of 1/4 lemon (or lime as you prefer) or more juice to taste
• 3/4 cup heavy cream (I messed up on this, as you'll see later)
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Place the blueberries, sugar, salt, zest and juice in a saucepan.  On medium heat, cook the blueberry mixture until blueberries begin to pop, about 3-5 minutes. 

The recipe at this point tells you to put the mixture in a blender and whir away, but I didn't want to dirty a piece of equipment so I transferred the mixture to a bowl and just mashed it with a fork.  The mixture doesn't have to be smooth--first of all it won't get that way and second it's nice to have a little texture.  Although don't do what I did one time and leave some blueberries whole--you will literally be eating frozen blueberry pebbles and that's not super pleasant. Too much texture.

Stir in heavy cream and sour cream.  At this point I realized that I did not have enough cream (I was using it in another recipe), so I upped the sour cream to a cup, used a 1/4 cup of heavy cream, and a 1/4 cup of skim milk (which we have around for cereal).  If you like, put in more lemon juice.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in fridge until completely cold.

After the ice cream base is completely chilled, freeze in ice cream maker according to instructions.  When the incredibly loud and jarring blare from your 10-year old ice cream maker is done, transfer ice cream to another container and freeze for a few hours.

While there is waiting time for the ice cream base to cool and for the final freeze, in terms of actual work this is an easy recipe and I highly recommend it.  Not too sweet, and great tang from the lemon juice and sour cream.

Along with the ice cream I served a very simple French Yogurt Cake, also courtesy of Dorie.  Don't let the "French" scare you off.  It's a very easy, homey recipe which Dorie says many Frenchwomen know when they want to whip up something simple.  I love this recipe because I don't have to haul out the mixer. SCORE.

Ingredients (with my notes in italics):

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup ground almonds (or, if you'd prefer, omit the almonds and use another 1/2 cup all-purpose flour) (in what seemed to be a pattern that day, I had completely forgotten to buy almonds (though truthfully I did see them on my grocery list and went Beh! I don't need those, I don't remember what those were for) so I used 2 cups of flour)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup sugar
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 3 large eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (due to almond oversight, supra, I also added 1/4 teaspoon almond extract but it didn't really come through, next time I might add more)
• 1/2 cup flavorless oil, such canola or safflower (oddly, I had safflower oil, but I think using olive oil in baking is awesome so if that's what you have then go for it--Dorie even has a version with olive oil in it)

There's also a marmalade glaze that goes along with it but I didn't make that (for the record it's 1/2 cup lemon marmalade, strained, heated in a saucepan or microwave with about 1 tsp water, brushed over the cake).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter/grease an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. 

In a separate, larger bowl, combine the sugar and lemon zest with your fingers until well-incorporated, kinda like wet sand.

To the sugar/zest sand, add in eggs, yogurt, and extract.

Mix together to combine well.  Then slowly add in the dry ingredients with a whisk until just incorporated--the mixture will be quite thick and you'll be like "why am I using a whisk". Patience.  Oh, don't whisk too much because that will build up gluten and you want a nice, light cake, not one that's like eating a baguette.

Fold in olive oil with a spatula, until you get this pretty shiny stuff.

Pour into your greased loaf pan, level out the top with a spatula, place on baking sheet, and shove it in the oven for about 50-55 minutes, or until sides of cake pull away from the pan. 

When done, take out of oven and place loaf pan on cooling rack for about 5 minutes.  Afterwards, run knife around edges of cake if necessary (mine came right out), flip out of pan, and rest again on cooling rack.

Slice and serve, baby, slice and serve. Ta-da!