TWD: Honey Peach Ice Cream

There is just something about ice cream that makes me happy. It just reminds me of the summers I spent in Northern Michigan with my family.

Each summer we would make the 3 hour trek to the lake…me and my two sisters crammed into the back seat. Typically we would fight about who was leaning on whom, who was breathing on whom, and who was ignoring who. I always got the middle seat because I was the youngest.
But after the one hundred questions to our mom and dad including “Are we there yet?” we would arrive at our destination, take in the smell of pine and evergreen trees and ….the smell of the lake. I love that smell.

Our vacation was never complete without a trip to our favorite candy and ice cream store, Ka-Jac’s (really it was a convenient store but to us….all we noticed was the ice cream and candy). I always got blue moon or superman. (What flavor is blue moon anyway? I’ve never been able to really figure that out?)

Even though I still love superman and blue moon ice cream, I have broadened my horizons to try a new ice cream when I go back to that party store. I don’t make it up to our family vacation spot as much anymore which is why I make a ton of ice cream at home.

I have never made peach ice cream, let alone honey peach; however it was a nice change! I left out the peach chunks because sometimes biting into ice fruit hurts my teeth. The ice cream was easy to make, and was very smooth. I used my handy Cuisinart ice cream maker. If you don’t have one—you really need to run out and get one. Homemade ice cream is so much better than store bought! The honey undertone flavor really makes the ice cream.

Thanks Tommi of Brown Interior for hosting TWD this week. If you would like the recipe—head on over to her page! You can also check out what the other bakers of TWD were up to this week by clicking on the blogroll.

TWD: Peach Tartlet

It’s TWD and a big thanks to Jessica from My Baking Heart for hosting this week!!

I decided to follow the ‘playing around’ section of this recipe because I bought a ton of peaches for the honey and peach ice cream (stay tuned it’s coming up next Tuesday!). I thought I would serve the two together but my hunger got the best of me mid-afternoon (before the ice cream was frozen) and I ate the tart. Before dinner.

I saved the other tart (as I only made two) for my husband to have after dinner anticipating that I would get to eat that one too as he usually eats one bite unless it’s a huge piece of chocolate something or other. So when I wandered into the kitchen late in the evening, he still had not eaten it. So I took a bite. When he saw me, he swooped into the kitchen and said “I thought that one was for me?” “Oh sorry”, I say with a mouth full of peachy tart. When I turned around….the tart was gone. GONE!

So needless to say, he loved it. I loved it.

Now a few things about this tart. First, it’s obvious that I used peaches and not apples. But you could use any similar fruit (pears, plums, apricots). And I would. I also added cinnamon sugar to the top. Because that is what I do.

Second, per request of Dorie, I bought ‘full butter’ pastry dough instead of Pepperidge Farm. I found mine at Trader Joe for $4.99 per the advice of the other bakers. I’m telling you—I shop Trader Joe weekly and have never noticed it. So I’m so thankful for our Q&A section on TWD—I always learn something. I will be buying this pastry dough from now on. It’s amazing. (Sorry guys, I was not motivated to try the pastry dough from scratch. Maybe next time. Because there WILL be a next time.)

The only thing I noticed about my tart that didn’t seem right was that it didn’t seem to rise as much as the picture in the book. I’m going to blame this on human error. I thought I was supposed to cut out rings to top the circle of pastry as I have seen this on a cooking show but I couldn’t get my geometry skills in tact to make sense of it. Since I had remaining dough—I just made cinnamon swirls ;)

If you would like the recipe, check out Jessica’s page! OR you can buy the book that all us Tuesday with Dorie bakers bake with!