Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Roasted Peaches and Rosemary

Do you have access to an ice cream maker and goat cheese? If the answer is yes, then please make this immediately and continuously until Labor Day...and probably for the rest of the year...and maybe for the rest of your life. The basic recipe for goat cheese ice cream from Food52 is below, and here are seven variations on flavors and mix-ins, one of which I adapted to make tonight’s dessert. I feel like this is only the tip of the frozen hircine dessert iceberg. Take a moment to conjure a mental image for that phrase. You're welcome. 

After waiting three days for my peaches to ripen, they're sliced, pitted, and liberally covered in rosemary sugar in preparation for some glorious roasting.

Everything is better with butter, yes? Yes. The peaches are cooked with melted butter in a cast iron skillet, then transferred to the oven to roast and get really, really pretty and aromatic.

After roasting, I scooped the peaches into a ceramic bowl and cut them into bite-sized pieces. So as to not waste any sugary, buttery, peachy flavor, I poured the extra liquid remaining in the pan over the peach chunks and set the bowl aside to cool while I made the ice cream.

Earlier in the day, I'd prepared the ice cream batter, and it had been chilling in the fridge for quite a few hours before I poured into the ice cream maker. After that, it only took 20 minutes to mix and set up. 

The last (and most fun) order of business was mixing the peaches into the soft, new ice cream. I alternated between layers of fruit and ice cream until both were gone, then gently mixed it all together. It's sitting in the freezer right now hardening to normal ice-cream consistency. I'm waiting with bated breathe to try some as a type this sentence...

Goat Cheese Ice Cream

From Food52

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

1/3 cup honey

¼ teaspoon salt

4 egg yolks

½ cup (4 ounces) fresh goat cheese,

Directions

Heat cream, milk, honey, and salt in a saucepan until just simmering. Meanwhile, in a light bowl, lightly whisk the egg yolks.

Once milk mixture is simmering, slowly pour it into the yolks, while whisking constantly.

Add the egg and cream mixture back into the saucepan and cook on low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon, about 5 to 7 minutes, then remove from the heat.

Crumble the goat cheese into a large bowl and then strain the warm custard through a fine mesh strainer onto the goat cheese and whisk until fully incorporated and smooth.

Cover and cool in the fridge until thoroughly chilled, at least 2 hours or overnight.

Freeze the mixture in an ice cream maker.

Once it is frozen, transfer dollops of ice cream into a one-quart container. If using add-ins (like peaches roasted with rosemary –recipe below, or something equally awesome – possible options here), stir those in now, adding tablespoons of the variegate as you go so that ice cream and add-in are layered together.

Run a butter knife through the mixture in a swirling motion two to three times to gently swirl the ice cream and variegate.

Seal the container and let the ice cream set in the freezer for at least 4 hours before serving.

The ice cream will keep for a week in the freezer.

Roasted Peaches with Rosemary

Adapted from Food52

Ingredients

¾ cup raw sugar

3 Tbsp chopped rosemary leaves

4 firm, ripe peaches, pitted and halved (peeling is optional)

Kosher salt

4 Tbsp unsalted butter

Directions

Preheat oven to 425° F

In a food processor, combine raw sugar and chopped rosemary (make sure the rosemary is completely dry if you've just rinsed it). Process for about 30 seconds, or until well integrated. (You won't need the full amount of rosemary sugar for one recipe, but it keeps well tightly covered, and it can be used in tea, on fruit, &c)

Liberally sprinkle cut sides of halved peaches with the rosemary sugar, and follow with a pinch of salt.

Melt butter in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat.

Arrange the peaches in the skillet, cut side-down.

Cook for 3 to 5 minutes without disturbing, until the cut sides begin to brown. (Note: The peaches will throw off juice while they’re browning, but it will eventually thicken in the oven.)

Transfer the skillet to the oven and roast for about 10 minutes.

Flip the peaches, drizzle/baste with butter and juice from the pan, and continue roasting another 5 to 10 minutes, or until tender. (The total cooking time will depend on the size and ripeness of your peaches.)

Blueberry Shortcakes with Lemon and Thyme Biscuits and Jasmine Whipped Cream

For this week's recipe, I asked facebookworld to weigh in on a choice between another rhubarb-inspired adventure and blueberry shortcakes. They (or I should say you guys – I’m assuming the audience is the same, right?) opted for blueberries rather than a rhubarb redux, so bloobs it is. Democracy in action. In retrospect, I’m really glad this recipe was the winner, because, true to their name, shortcakes do not take long to prepare, and June is a busy month over here.  The only element of the recipe that took some extended preparation was the whipped cream, but we’ll talk about that later. First, an observation:

There are quite a few antiquated phrases for the act of improving the appearance of something that is ordinary or unappealing, and some of them subscribe to a decidedly porcine inclination: making a purse out of a sow’s ear, or putting lipstick on a pig. These came to mind when I was thinking about strawberry shortcakes and preparing my ingredients for this recipe. Now, I’m not saying that strawberry shortcake is the pig in this analogy per se (also, who ever said there was anything wrong with pigs? Noble animals for sooth, dependable, and intelligent)…but strawberry shortcake is an awfully ordinary dessert for the summer season. Delicious, sure, but expected, and perhaps even getting a little tired now that we’re past the solstice and barreling toward the dog days. So, while the length of this post's name alone may make it seem sophisticated and complicated, we’re basically just taking strawberry shortcake and making a few minor tweaks  -  churching up a biscuit here and swapping out a berry there – until this little piggy is so dolled up you'd think she's on her way to the prom. But I digress.

The biscuit assembly was straightforward. Plus, I like recipes that require kneading so this one gets bonus points in my book.

The recipe told me to use a 3-inch biscuit cutter to make the rounds, but here in the 4 oz Kitchen we’re in the habit of subbing drinking vessels for cutting tools, so I grabbed a tumbler off the shelf and went to town. Worked great.

I was able to get 8 good-sized biscuits out of the dough, so I don’t know how big the recipe authors were making theirs to only get 6. Maybe they just weren’t as thrifty with their scrap recycling as I am.

The biscuit bake time was the perfect window to get the blueberry topping ready. Preparing the berries was as simple as adding sugar and heat and stirring until they looked right. In other places, I’ve seen the transformation berries undergo during maceration called “giving up their water,” which I think is delightful.

Both the biscuits and berries need to come to at least room temperature before the dessert is assembled (the berries can even be chilled in the fridge for a day or two if you want to make them ahead of time). 

Okay, so let’s talk about this whipped cream. Here is the recipe that gave me the idea for a jasmine tea infusion, but I deviated from its instructions pretty significantly. My version more closely followed the method for steeping tea in milk for the Earl Grey Teacup Cakes I made last fall. Instead of just plopping the tea bags into cold milk, I heated the milk and then added the tea. I think this released the flavor from the tea bags better and made the infusion process faster and the final essence of jasmine more pronounced.  I had to be really careful with the heat since this was heavy cream instead of just milk like in the Earl Grey recipe, so I used a very low flame and watched it the whole time, stirring frequently as I steeped six tea bags for a good 15 minutes – until just before bubbles began (have you made ganache before? the almost-simmering process here is very similar). Then I took the pan off the heat, covered it with a towel, and let it come to room temperature before removing the towel, covering  the cream + tea bag mixture with plastic, and refrigerating it overnight. The next day, after the berries and biscuits were done, I just had to take the milk out of the fridge, remove the tea bags, and whip it up.

The care put into the preparing the cream definitely paid off. This whipped cream is amazing. I think I found my purpose in life, and it is to spread the Good News about flavored whipped cream to the uninitiated. It is the easiest thing in the world to prepare (granted, the tea infusion maybe takes a little more patience, but that’s a special case), and heavy cream is a blank canvas.  It takes so many flavors so well – basic extracts like mint and coconut, herbs like lavender and rosemary, spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and tea! And liquor! And So. Much. More. Seriously, people. There's no reason to reach for Cool Whip when you’ve got these kinds of easy options at your fingertips.

This recipe has lots of pluses: saturated colors, high-contrast textures, and flavor for days. I really like the way that none of the components of this dessert are too sweet: the bitterness of the tea, the tartness of the berries, the earthiness of the thyme, the sharpness of the lemon all blend into a flavor that is subtle and mellow and really enjoyable. This dish is the type whose flavor emerges and evolves from bite to bite. But I feel like describing how something tastes can be a little bit like explaining what water feels like to fish, so you really just have to try it and judge for yourself. Or, as Levar Burton would say, “Don’t take my word for it.”

Blueberry Shortcakes with Lemon and Thyme Biscuits

From Bon Appétit

Ingredients for the Berries

4 cups (21-22 oz) fresh blueberries, rinsed & drained well

2/3  cup powdered sugar

2 Tbsp water

Ingredients for the Biscuits

¾ cup chilled buttermilk

1 Tbsp finely grated lemon peel (in my world this is called ‘zest’. Idk why Bon Appétit has to be all verbose about it…)

1 tsp chopped fresh thyme

2¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup packed golden brown sugar

1½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

6 Tbsp chilled unsalted butter cut into 1/3-inch cubes

Raw sugar for dusting (I used Turbinado)

Directions

For the Berries

Combine all ingredients in large saucepan.

Stir over medium heat until berries are slightly softened and syrup coats spoon, about 10 minutes.

Transfer to medium glass bowl.

**Can be made 2-3 days ahead. Cover and chill. Bring to room temperature before serving

For the Biscuits

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 425°F. Line large rimmed baking sheet with silicone baking mat, smooth side up, or parchment paper.

 Mix buttermilk, lemon peel, and thyme in small bowl.

Whisk next 5 ingredients in large bowl to blend, breaking up any large clumps of brown sugar with fingertips.

Add butter and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Add buttermilk mixture and stir with fork just until blended (dough will be sticky).

Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface. Knead gently just until dough comes together, 4 to 5 turns (do not overwork dough or shortcakes will be tough).

Pat dough out to 3/4-inch-thick round. Using 3-inch-diameter cookie cutter dipped in flour (or whatever wide-mouth glass happens to be within arm’s reach), cut out dough rounds. Gently gather dough scraps and pat out to 3/4-inch thickness. Cut out additional rounds, for 6 rounds total. (Again, I was able to easily get 8 when I used the dough up completely.)

Transfer dough rounds to prepared baking sheet, spacing evenly and sprinkle with raw sugar.

Bake biscuits until golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 15 minutes.

Transfer to rack; cool slightly before cutting, (*or cool to room temperature, package tightly, and save for up to 3 days…also, please enjoy the concrete and specific nature of the rest of these directions. Bon Appétit must think we’re all idiots who don’t know how to cut biscuits or use plates…)

Using a serrated knife, carefully cut biscuits horizontally in half. Place bottom half of each biscuit on each of 6 plates. Spoon blueberries and syrup over, dividing equally. Cover with biscuit tops. Place scoop of ice cream or dollop of whipped cream alongside each and serve.

Jasmine-Infused Whipped Cream

Adapted from Epicurious

Ingredients

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 Tbsp good-quality loose-leaf jasmine tea or 4-6 jasmine tea bags

1 Tbsp granulated sugar (add more or less to taste)

Directions

To flavor the cream…

Pour cream into a small sauce pan over low heat and immediately add tea leaves/bags

Stirring frequently, slowly warm the cream until it is steaming and the tea begins to release its flavor – do NOT let the cream boil. If you see little bubbles starting to form, ABORT IMMEDIATELY.

After about 10 min, remove from heat, cover pan, and let it sit until cooled to room temp

Place room-temp cream into refrigerator to cool

*Once cream has chilled thoroughly (1-2 hours minimum), cream can be whipped at any time. Cream can also chill in the fridge overnight

To whip the cream…

Strain the cream-tea mixture through a fine strainer into a mixing bowl. Remove and dispose of solids.

Add sugar; beat until peaks form

Note (This may be Bon-Appétit-Level Captain Obvious Information, but just in case…): The intensity of the tea flavor will be dictated by how long the tea is left in the cream. For a gentler flavor, remove tea bags right away when cream comes off the stove. For more intense flavor, leave them in longer – all the way up until just prior to whipping, if you’d like.  For a really strong flavor, steep tea until just before whipping and firmly squeeze the excess cream from the bags into the mixing bowl as you’re removing them. Also remember that tea will give the cream a bitter flavor, so taste it before, during, and after the whipping process, and add enough sugar to ensure the final product is palatable.