Five Herb Ice Milk Food

FIVE-SPICE CONES

Steps:

• Whisk together all ingredients except additional butter in a bowl until smooth. Chill batter, covered, 1 hour.
• Heat pizzelle maker and lightly brush top and bottom of pizzelle molds with butter. Pour 1 tablespoon batter into bottom of each pizzelle mold. Close cover and cook batter until golden, about 2 minutes.
• Working quickly (pizzelle are pliable only while hot), peel off 1 pizzelle and wrap around cone mold, overlapping ends, and pinching tip closed. Hold cone in place until it hardens, about 5 seconds, then slip off mold and repeat with remaining pizzelle. Make more pizzelle and cones in same manner.

FIVE-HERB ICE MILK

Steps:

• Whisk together milk, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan. Add herb sprigs and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Gently boil, whisking constantly, 1 minute.
• Lightly beat yolks in a large bowl. Pour hot milk mixture through a sieve into a large glass measure, pressing gently on sprigs before discarding, then gradually add to yolks, whisking until combined.
• Cook mixture in saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until thick enough to coat back of spoon and registers 170 to 175°F on thermometer, 3 to 5 minutes (do not let boil).
• Pour custard through cleaned sieve into a clean bowl and cool completely, its surface covered with wax paper. Chill until cold, at least 2 hours.
• Freeze custard in ice cream maker. Transfer ice milk to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

SIMPLE VANILLA ICE MILK

Steps:

• Combine milk, sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl. Stir till sugar is dissolved.
• If using Ice Cream Machine: Add milk mixture to an ice cream machine and process 20 minutes or until mixture thickens. Pour into tupperware and freeze 8 hours or overnight. Consistency may improve by stirring every 4 hours or so until fully frozen.
• If not using Ice Cream Machine: Pour into shallow freezer-proof dish and put in freezer. Stir every 2-4 hours once crystals form. Follow above directions for freezing.

FRESH FLOWER/HERB BLOSSOM ICE CUBES FOR SUMMERTIME ENTERTAINING

Steps:

• Gather and gently rinse all of your pesticide-free blossoms.
• Boil water for 2 minutes for all the air trapped in the water to escape. Then leave to cool till room temperature. This will ensure that the ice cubes are crystal clear.
• Place each blossom at the base of each individual compartment within an ice tray (or more trays if you have a large party).
• Fill each compartment half full with the cooled boiled water and freeze.
• After the water is frozen solid, fill each ice cube compartment the rest of the way to the top with the remaining boiled water.
• Refreeze and allow it to remain in the freezer until you are ready to use them (store in the freezer in zip lock bags).
• NOTE: You can also freeze a large ice ring for the punch bowl, with a variety of blossoms. Don't use the glass punchbowl or it will expand and burst in the freezer. Instead, use a ring-shaped cake tin and fill it with flowers and water. Follow the same procedure as above (filling halfway, then freezing), but you can add additional blossoms to the second layer so that the blossoms are throughout the large ice ring.
• Use the ice cubes in pitchers or glasses of lemonade, iced tea, juices, punches and cocktails.

MINT OR BASIL ICE CREAM

Steps:

• In a food processor, pulse together mint or basil leaves and sugar until pulverized and bright green.
• In a small pot, simmer heavy cream, milk, herb sugar and salt until sugar completely dissolves, about 5 minutes. Remove pot from heat. In a separate bowl, whisk yolks. Whisking constantly, slowly whisk about a third of the hot cream into the yolks, then whisk the yolk mixture back into the pot with the cream.
• Return pot to medium-low heat and gently cook until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (about 170 degrees on an instant-read thermometer). Remove from heat and allow custard to steep for 30 minutes.
• Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Cool mixture to room temperature. Cover and chill at least 4 hours or overnight.
• Churn in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer's instructions. Serve directly from the machine for soft serve, or store in freezer until needed.