Pidapippo and the nutella sauce

Don't wear this if you are wearing white, but it is amazing...  No wonder the queue curls around the block!

The boss always has two flavours, where as I am a one scoop kind of girl now... He allows me try his (true love) and I let him try mine... so romantic! It was date night, so we felt like we were missing a very loved little licker... She loves them all... And we are bad parents, so we let her have ice cream... A lady stopped me recently at Fleischers in Glenferrie Road and asked me why I was letting her have an ice cream!  The sugar police are everywhere!

Jock's turkish delight in Albert Park

The Celebrity Ice Cream Critic had a birthday in early April, so we went to Jock's for an ice cream.  I tried the turkish delight and was very impressed... There were chunks of turkish delight and pistachio nuts in the smooth light peach ice cream.  I loved every lick.

Davey Mac's in BlackRock

We met friends at the bay yesterday... Davey Mac's is situated in Balcombe Road, BlackRock.  We found a free 4 hour park in the parking lot behind the shops.

The store is clean and modern.  There are a couple of low seats, but really no where to sit with a big group.  It would be lovely to have a few chairs and tables outside under an umbrella... Although the shop is near the crossing, so there may not be space or the council may not allow it.  It is a thriving cafe area... there are many cafes facing the bay with tables outside and people enjoying meals in the fine weather.  Davey Mac's looks to have a room upstairs... maybe that is where they make the ice cream.

Jemima tried the strawberry ice cream in a kids cone.

James had cherry yoghurt and fererro, but was underwhelmed (I think the key is that we had sweet before savoury... ice cream is better after lunch).

 

I had mint choc chip and it was fantastic - smooth and delicious.  I can eat ice cream at almost any time of day.

Other flavours tried by our friends included cookies and cream, coffee and salted caramel.

Pidapippo in Carlton

They only open at 12 noon, so we had to wait.  We took Jemima for a play on the slide in Princes Park.  The walk along College Crescent was hot, but it was fun reminiscing about uni days.

Good decorations, airy, spacious... plenty of space to queue...

Colourful tins, reminiscent of Italy... King & Godfrey may be gone, but the style is here...

Outdoor chairs and tables... groovy... imagine taking a uni date here? Beats Brunetti in my book!

I chose pistachio and Nutella.  The Nutella was exquisite (chocolate like hardened flakes throughout creamy vanilla).

The pistachio didn't stand a chance under the Nutella sauce...

James had a disappointing flavour (macadamia and wattle).  It was just like honey and macadamia made it rich... I should have ordered him a sorbet... The hazelnut didn't impress, but Jemima helped him eat it.

 

Mango Fifty by Kohu Road

The Mango Fifty is a masterpiece... Smooth just doesn't capture it... It is a wonderful way to cool down on a hot summer day.

It knocks out the competition... Here we tried it with a very good chocolate and blood orange gelato, as well as Macha Green tea white chocolate waffle cone crunch ice-cream from Connoisseur.

Ice cream carts and soft serve

We visited the new Chadstone today and saw a couple of new ice cream outlets.  I love the traditional ice cream cart, but am intrigued by the fruit yoghurt soft serve.

I will definitely return on a warmer day... 

Sticking to making chicken and artichoke pizza...

...then roast chicken and mushroom risotto tonight... it's icy out there...

Piccolino, Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn

After a couple of gloomy autumn days, the sun came out on Sunday and we went for a long walk to Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn.  The destination was Piccolino, a gelato shop with a reputation for excellent pistachio ice cream.  It lived up to expectation.  The ice cream was amazing.

I had the pistachio (sweet, nutty, chunky) and hazelnut (salty, nutty) in a waffle cone:

The celebrity had mango (fruity) and cherry ripe (coconut, cherry, chocolate perfection):

Jemima had a taste of all the flavours and really cheered up after being a little snoozy in the mid afternoon sun.

Rhubarb, strawberry and rosewater ice cream

I stewed the rhubarb first and added cream, natural yoghurt, milk, caster sugar, chopped strawberries and a dash of rosewater.  It worked a treat!

Jock's gets approval from Jemima

We had ice cream at Jock's in Albert Park on Friday night and Jemima had a taste.  She enjoyed it very much.

I had a scoop of gingerbread and a scoop of fig (why have one scoop for $4.50, when you can have two for $5.50?):

James tried the summer pudding:

Lucy had something with chocolate...

Jemima did have a sugar high and would not go to sleep until 10:30pm, but she really loved the cold sweetness on her teeth (she has 5 teeth at 9 months of age):

Coconut ice cream

I used coconut milk (2/3 cup), milk (1 1/2 cups), cream (2/3 cup), desiccated coconut (1/2 cup), sugar (1/2 cup) and it turned out well:

It froze well after churning and has a creamy texture...

I added chocolate sauce (melted dark chocolate) for that lamington style dessert:

Raspberry and mango ice cream

Craig and Maz invited us for dessert last night and we tried their magnificent mango and raspberry home made ice cream.

Maz uses:
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup cream
3/4 cup yoghurt
Fruit
Pinch of salt
Teaspoon vanilla

The ice cream was creamy and delicious.  They used fruit from their garden.  Maz adds lime to the mango and this added a wonderful tang, as well as the yoghurt.

We had a wonderful home made plum tart with the ice cream:

Vanilla bean ice cream

After many failures, we finally bought an ice cream maker. It was on sale at Myer last week and we made vanilla bean ice cream over the weekend.  Luckily it was a great success.

Ingredients
1 cup of milk
1 cup of cream
1/2 cup of sugar
4 egg yolks
1 vanilla pod

First you chill the ice cream bucket for 24 hours. Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan with the vanilla pod, split and de-seeded. Beat the yolks and sugar until stiff, add heated milk/cream mixture and reheat, removing the vanilla pod. Allow to cool before placing in the fridge for 4 hours. Then churn for 40 minutes.  This makes 800 ml of ice cream, so 4 people polished that off in 2 sittings... (ie. equivalent of 8 scoops)

It was creamy and delicious... not too hard and just delicious. Yippee... the Razzaforino Scoopitable Scream idea may have life in it after all...

We had the ice cream with a chocolate raspberry brownie... it was yummy...

Raspberry coconut and cashew ice cream

Unfortunately this turned out to be very odd... The cashews were crushed, the coconut oil made it very thick and hard once frozen. The raspberries were exquisite, but I will not be making this again.

Plum Ice Cream

I was given a bag of plums on the weekend and had a recipe clipped from the Weekend Australian magazine and decided to try it out. David Herbert calls for:

450 grams of plums,
300 grams caster sugar,
100ml water,
3 eggs and
300 ml cream.

I used light cream and it worked well.

The plums were stewed and then pureed. Herbert strained them, but I left the pulp in. The sugar and water are boiled down.

The ice cream was an odd grey/green colour when I took it out of the fridge. I assume this was the plum reacting with the cream/egg/sugar mixture.

It tasted magnificent. It was sweeter than the lemon ice cream and I think the light cream helped.

Lemon Ice Cream - a Forrest family recipe

I was a little shocked by the 10 eggs, but then I found out that it makes 4 litres.

There is a lot of whipping involved. First, you whip the egg yolks with half a cup of sugar.

Then you reduce 350 ml of lemon juice to 150 ml, adding 1/2 cup of sugar.   Mix with the yolks and the grated rind of 6 lemons. Whip 750 ml cream and combine. Whip the evaporated milk (1 tin) and fold in. Whip egg whites with 1/2 cup of sugar and combine.

Freeze for 8 hours. It is harder than commercial ice cream. The lemon makes it taste a bit like sherbet.

My first taste of Le Croissant

I was given a orange cake from Le Croissant (1204 Toorak Road, Camberwell) yesterday.  It was magnificent... I even loved the box and am going to keep it (repurposing it for cards/knick-knacks, because it is so pretty and a good size for storing things). Orange cake has a very strong orange peel flavour (which I like... it makes it seem less sweet... almost savoury).

I have heard about this shop and driven past it many times, but am yet to visit... This cake has made me want to visit even more.  I am not able to make cakes like that... so even and neatly decorated... I am definitely more of the rustic cook than the fancy pastry chef... This cake definitely had the WOW factor...

I have moved the candied orange on the cake (for ease of cutting)... it looked even better before.

The gateau for Lucy's Birthday

Ginny made an amazing gateau for Lucy's birthday on Saturday.  I have never seen a cake so tall and decadent.  It had flake on the top of chocolate icing with cream and fruit layered between the vanilla and chocolate cake.

The flavours were even more delicious the next day...

Home made ice cream sundaes

I enjoyed a week of luxury care at the Epworth Freemasons in East Melbourne.  Each morning friendly man with a bow tie knocked on our door to take our order for lunch, dinner and the following morning's breakfast.  This was no ordinary hospital food, mind you.  This was fine dining... better than some restaurants!  We were allowed to select entrée, main and dessert from a delicious menu.  I hopped in to turkey with cranberry sauce, roast beef sandwiches, steak, cheesecake (pictured below), while my better half tried out dumplings, chicken breast with coleslaw, chicken and avocado toasties (as shown below), pork belly and lamb rump.

The most exciting part of the meal was a tall glassful of home made ice cream with a long spoon!  We had 3 scoops of that day's flavours, including strawberry (with chunky strawberry pieces), chocolate (rich dark), mango (with sauce), raspberry sorbet, banana (reminded us of banana lolly flavour), as well as rum and raison (with cookie bits).