Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Not long after I made that strawberry cheesecake ice cream, my mom bought some blueberries at the grocery store. She came to me and asked, “Hey…could you make that ice cream again? With blueberries this time?” Of course, I was more than happy to, and here’s how it went!

I used the same basic cream base as last time, but the fruit was a completely different process. With all the changes I’ve made, I’d say this is pretty much my own recipe now. Remind me to post it in the near future!

We all agreed that when I made the strawberry ice cream, there was not nearly enough of it for our ice-cream-loving selves. So, this time I made a double batch.

Having so much ice cream did result in a couple of issues. The cream on its own list barely fit in the ice cream maker, meaning I had to mix the toppings in by hand afterward. When we ate it, it was clear that I didn’t do quite as good a job as the machine. There was way too much graham cracker at the top, but next to nothing in our last servings. The berry flavor was almost overpowering at the end, since so much of it had sunk down.

Ice cream is ice cream, so I couldn’t call it bad, but I do believe that there are some improvements I can make in the future. Mainly just making sure everything is stirred in evenly. Aside from that, it was pretty great! Like I mentioned earlier, I will be sharing this recipe sometime soon.

Berry Pancakes

A couple of years ago, my family was in Chicago and we had these AMAZING pancakes at a place called Wildberry. I still think about those pancakes…so for Father’s Day, I made them myself!

These were a hit. I made three kinds of sauces/toppings to go with the pancakes: a crème anglaise, a raspberry coulis (originally it was blackberry, but I didn’t have any of those so I substituted raspberries), and a sort of whipped cream topping, which I found in a crêpe recipe. Personally, the whipped topping was my favorite, but of course the pancakes tasted best with all three!

Call me lazy, but I just used store-bought pancake mix for the pancakes themselves. I was running short on time after making all of the other things, and the mix we have is actually pretty good.

Blueberry Muffins

Week #3 of surprise brunches: blueberry muffins!

A few days ago, while we were on a walk, my dad mentioned that blueberry muffins sounded good to him. I kept this in mind and made them for brunch today! Just so you know: I’m always thinking about what to bake next, so if you’re ever craving a certain treat, just drop a subtle hint…they might just happen to show up within the next few days!

I had a hard decision to make when choosing a recipe: should I make regular blueberry muffins, or blueberry oatmeal muffins? I’d narrowed it down to two recipes…it was just a choice of one or the other. The hard thing about these surprise brunches is that I can’t ask my family for their input! Being an incredibly indecisive person, this is unbelievable difficult for me. Eventually, I caved and asked my mom which one to make. She said regular blueberry—so that’s what I went with! I think it was a good choice, too. As for the other recipe, I’ll have to try it sometime soon, as well.

When baking these muffins, I made quite a few changes to the recipe. First of all, I thought that 1¼ cup sugar sounded like way too much, even when I compared it to other recipes. I ended up putting in just shy of 1 cup, and they were still plenty sweet. Next time, I think I’ll probably reduce it even more.

I’ve read about substituting applesauce for butter or oil in muffins, and I thought I’d give it a try. This being my first time, I didn’t want to make a big mistake, so I only replaced a third of the butter. Better to be safe than sorry. I’ve heard that using applesauce can make muffins too dense, but that wasn’t a problem for mine. They had a perfect texture—moist and soft, and neither too dense nor too airy.

There were two more changes I made to these muffins. I didn’t sprinkle sugar over the top—just a minor difference, but I thought I’d mention it. Personally, I’m not a fan of sugar-sprinkled muffins. Next, I changed the baking temperatures a little.

Before going into this, I read a lot about muffins, and how doing different things can make them turn out differently. Actually, here’s one of the posts that proved to be very helpful and interesting: https://www.handletheheat.com/ultimate-guide-muffins/

One thing I learned was that by putting the muffins in the oven at a higher temperature for the first few minutes, then lowering it for the rest of the bake time, you can get taller, rounder muffins with bigger tops. Well, mine certainly rose…many of them too much so! I don’t think that the high-low temperature method was to blame for that, though. A lot of the muffin tins were just filled too high. At least I got three perfect looking muffins: just enough for a nice photo!