Pumpkin Patch

It’s getting to be Fall, my favourite time of the year, and it’s our final ice cream blog so what would be more perfect than a Fall dessert? This time of the year you start to think about leaves changing and Thanksgiving and also Halloween. One thing that you tend to see a lot of this time of the year and leading up to Halloween is pumpkins, specifically pumpkin flavoured things. Our final ice cream flavour is called “Pumpkin Patch” by Brusters. This flavour has pumpkin ice cream mixed with Graham Ribbons and crunchy pie pieces.

Something that we have never made before on our blog is pumpkin pies so I am going to share my go to pumpkin pie recipe with a twist, we’re gonna make little pumpkin pie tarts.

I know some people go all out and make their own filling from scratch by buying a pumpkin and grinding it all up and they make their own crusts too, but when you’re busy and working it can be hard so don’t feel guilty going out and buying canned pumpkin and premade pie shells.

With that said, you will need the following to make your mini pies.

A package of frozen tart shells (24 come in a pack)

1 can of pumpkin (15 ounces)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk (14 ounces)

2 eggs

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. ginger

½ tsp. salt

Preheat you oven to 425 degrees.

While it’s preheating, mix the pumpkin, milk, eggs, spices, and salt together in your mixer.

Pour into the shells and bake for 15 minutes.

Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for about 30 minutes or until a knife inserted about inch from the crust comes out clean. Now this is how it’s done when making it as a big pie, tarts may take less time, but keep an eye on them while they bake and take note for the next time when you make them.

Let the mini pies cool. While they cool, whip up some cream to serve on top.

Yum! It’s Fall!

Belgian Waffles

It’s time for breakfast. Today’s flavour is Baskin Robbins “Belgian Waffle.” This one sounds like it could be really yummy especially if it was inside a waffle cone or a waffle bowl.

Now craving waffles...we’re going to share with you a recipe for some delicious Belgian Waffles that you can whip up in no time. You can eat these waffles for breakfast or dessert even. Put a dollop of ice cream on top and you can make yourself a breakfast inspired dessert or make it hearty with bacon and sausages and eggs or fried chicken and have breakfast for dinner. No matter when you eat them, they’ll be a tasty treat to have.

Belgian Waffles:

You will need...

3 ½ cup flour

2 tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

4 egg yolks

3 ½ cup of milk

1 cup oil

4 egg whites

In one bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients.

In another bowl, mix the eggs yolks, oil, and milk. Whisk it up and then add it into the dry ingredients and stir.

Beat the egg whites and then fold into the batter. Do not over mix.

Prepare in your waffle maker.

Serve warm. You can keep things simple and just have butter and syrup on top or you can top with some of your favourite topping like berries, fried eggs, whipped cream, ice cream, fried chicken, fruit yogurt, or anything your heart desires!

Monkey Puppet

So this week’s flavour is a very modern and untraditional ice cream flavour, the flavour is “Monkey Madness” by Brusters. The main ice cream flavour is banana which makes sense because monkeys and bananas are often associated. Stirred into that banana ice cream base are marshmallows and a candy called Buckeyes (which are a peanut butter fudge ball partially dipped in chocolate). If you’re a peanut butter and banana fan than this flavour is for you!

We’re not going to make anything with those ingredients, instead, we are going to make a monkey inspired craft. We thought a fun little kid craft to make would be monkey puppets. They’re really simple and would be a perfect activity to do when your child has over some of their new friends from school (since school started up this week).

So gather up the following...regular brown paper bags, some cardstock for the monkey parts (light pink, dark brown, lighter brown/beige, cream, and black), glue, scissors, a pencil, and “monkey parts.”

First of all you want to figure out how you are going to make the parts of the monkey. We have found a template here and printed that off and then cut it out and traced it on our cardstock. You can freehand drawing a monkey or use a cutting device like a Silhouette if you have.

Trace the inside of the ears in pink, the head and ears dark brown, the body, nose, and mouth in the light brown, around the eyes in cream, and the pupils in black.

Once you have all of the parts, you can start gluing them on/together.

Glue the eyes onto the cream eye piece. Then glue the inside of the ears onto the ears and the big eye piece onto the face and then to complete the face, glue the ears onto the head.

Next you can glue the head onto the flap of the bag and then the body just underneath the head. Now glue the nose on the flap so it partially covers the eye piece (draw on the nostrils before gluing) and the mouth part just under it. Finally glue the tail on the back of the paper bag near the bottom.

We took a look at our finished product and noticed that something was missing...a tongue! When you open up your little monkey puppet’s mouth it just seemed too empty so we cut a tongue out of red cardstock and then added a line down the middle to make it look like a tongue.

Now it’s done!

Coffee!!!

It’s time for a coffee blog. Yes, this week’s flavour is a Ben and Jerry's one and is called “Coffee coffee, buzz buzz buzz.” I am a big fan of coffee and I thought that we’d trying making a few different things with coffee this week. I will try out a couple of iced versions, some homemade iced and warm latte, and a dessert with coffee in it.

With Summer in full swing, I was feeling quite warm even first thing in the morning while I was sipping my hot coffee so I decided to try out a few iced cold coffee drinks to kick off my day. 

First of all I tried one that crushed up the ice like a Frappuccino.

*For all of these coffees, you’ll want to make your coffee stronger than usual so that you get better flavour when it gets diluted with ice/water (maybe cut the water in half; I usually do equal parts grounds and water when I make my regular morning coffee).

Blend about 1 ½ - 2 cups of ice cubes crushed up. Add ¾ cup of brewed strong coffee that is cooled along with ½ cup of milk/cream. If you want to, you can add some sugar (I prefer mine without) and a few drops of vanilla.

I also made one with whole ice cubes which I like better (see above pictures for the first steps). You can keep it real simple or make it a bit fancier. I made one with instant coffee in which you will need ½ cup of hot water and 2 tsp. of instant coffee, let cool. Then blend it with ¼ cup of cream and 1 tsp. of vanilla and pour over ice. If you make it with regular brewed coffee then blend a cooled 1 cup of coffee along with 1 tsp. of vanilla, 2-4 tbsp. of half and half and then pour over ice.

I love lattes, but they can be expensive and have a lot of calories, so these are some easy at home lattes that you can try.

For an iced latte try brewing 1/3 cup of coffee with 2 cups of cold water. Combine the brewed and slightly cooled coffee with 1 can of sweetened condensed milk and serve over ice. This makes lots of coffee so if you only want some then refrigerate some and pour over ice when you are ready to drink it.

For a warm latte, I kind of used the method that we did when we made London Fogs a while back. Start by brewing some really strong coffee. 

Pick the mug you want and then fill it half way up with milk or cream and pour into a saucepan. Then whisk constantly while it simmers on the stove (make sure you don’t boil). 

Fill your mug/mugs up with coffee half way, add a bit of vanilla, this is where you’d add syrup or sugar if you like it, and then when you have a nice foam on your milk that you are whisking, pour the milk into the coffee and top with the foam. You can sprinkle with cocoa or cinnamon.

Ok, so another must try and a must try that is at the top of my list, are these Oreo cookie ice cubes. Simply crush up some Oreo’s and line them in the bottom of some ice cube trays and top with the milk of your choice. Once they have frozen, add them to your morning coffee, iced or warm!

Coffee dessert time! We’ve been talking about different ways to drink coffee but now we thought we’d try a dessert with coffee as the main ingredient. Nicole isn’t a coffee fan so I have been testing out the drinks so far and have been taking over this blog and I’ll do the same for this dessert but maybe I can try and convince her to have some. I have chosen to make chocolate chip coffee cookies. These have a really nice strong coffee flavour; it’s not so much mocha like some coffee chocolate combos, you can definitely taste the coffee and chocolate separately.

Chocolate Chip Coffee Cookie Recipe:

You will need...

½ cup of butter

½ cup of granulated sugar

¼ cup of brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp. of instant coffee granules

1 tbsp. of water

2 cups of flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. of cornstarch

½ tsp. of baking soda

¼ tsp. of salt

1 cup of chocolate chips

Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk the flour, powder, soda, cornstarch, some of the coffee granules, and salt.

Then almost melt the butter in the microwave and pour into mixing bowl. Mix in the sugars and then the egg until combined.

Dissolve the  rest of the instant coffee into the water and then add to the wet ingredients.

Now add in the dry ingredients slowly until completely mixed and then stir in the chocolate chips.

You can roll balls of dough and place on the cookie sheet for a more polished look or you can scoop the dough. It’s up to you.

Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Allow to cool a bit before removing from the sheet.