The great ice cream contest!

Yes, we did, we bought yet another kitchen toy.  Thank goodness that the biggest room in our apartment is the kitchen or I think we may be in a bit of trouble.  I am very adamant about multi-use appliances and do my best to purchase them whenever possible, our kitchen-aid mixer has the ability to add attachments to it, I wanted an ice cream machine.  It arrived and I popped the bowl into the freezer before I left for work.  Yesterday we had a free evening to begin our madness.  I decided to go with a frozen yogurt, made from home made yogurt I made over the weekend with fresh whole milk and cream.  Mr. Mouse went with a good old fashioned ice cream recipe using the same farm fresh milk but in 2%.  He also (sneaky guy) shredded fresh coconut and used a little bit of Nutella for flavoring.  He got the first spin in our new toy, it's a neat thing that ice cream maker and I must say his ice cream came out really delicious.


For my recipe I did a peach vanilla frozen yogurt.  Once the yogurt was strained I popped it into the freezer, I used 3 farm fresh peaches which were just perfectly ripe, 2 tsp of vanilla flavoring and about 1/8c of raw sugar.  I boiled it and pureed it with the hand blender to get everything to a consistent texture.  I then popped that into the freezer to cool down.  Once the ice cream bowl was sufficiently re-frozen I pulled all my frosty cold ingredients together and popped them into the mixer then just let it go slow and low for about 20 minutes.  I think thoroughly chilling everything really helped with keeping the bowl frozen and making my yogurt creamy.  It was delicious.  The next day we re-tasted recipes, Mr. Mouse graciously said that my recipe won, I think he as just being nice, they were both really good and easy to make.  The only thing I did not like about both of them was that they pretty much froze solid once in the freezer, instead of staying creamy, I need to do a little research on why that happened, all in all, I look forward to making all different flavors of home made ice cream, yogurt and sorbets!


Until then
~CM


p.s. Below is the recipe I started off with, then I altered it according to my preferences, I got it from the following web site: 
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/a-frozen-yogurt-recipe-to-rival-pinkberrys-recipe.html


Vanilla Frozen Yogurt Recipe
Heidi notes: First off, remember it is important to use good-quality whole-milk yogurt. The version in David's book is Vanilla Frozen Yogurt. This time around I skipped out on the vanilla, opting for straight, bright white yogurt with the sweetness playing off the tang of the yogurt. I also used slightly less sugar than called for here, more like 2/3 cup - but you can go either way depending on what you like.

3 cups (720g) strained yogurt (see below) or Greek-style yogurt
3/4 cup (150g) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Mix together the yogurt, sugar, and vanilla (if using). Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Refrigerate 1 hour.
Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.
To make 1 cup (240g) of strained yogurt, line a mesh strainer with a few layers of cheese cloth. then scrape 16 ounces or 2 cups (480g) of plain whole-milk yogurt into the cheesecloth. Gather the ends and fold them over the yogurt, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours. So, for the above recipe start with and strain 6 cups of yogurt.
Makes about 1 quart.