The Perfect Proportions

This is not a post about the golden rectangle.  It is not a post about pizza either, but pizza does play a part in the story.  What this post is about is ice cream.

Have you ever had the perfect slice of pizza?  Have you gone back to that same place again and again because they have their pizza recipe right?  With pizza, and many other recipes, the proper proportions are key to making or breaking a recipe.   Pizza, in its essence is only three ingredients: crust, sauce and cheese.  Those three ingredients, in the right proportions, can make that perfect pizza slice.

You love cheese you say?  Add too much and it overwhelms the sauce.  Too much sauce and the cheese slides off.  And the taste isn't right, it's not, "how great it was the last time we had it here."

So about that ice cream.  We've been making ice cream in my family since I was a small child.  I am only familiar with one type of ice cream making machine and that's the one with the ice around the perimiter of the big bucket with the rock salt and the loud, "whirrrr whirrr" for an hour as it churns away.  We made two types of ice cream, no wait, three.  There was vanilla (the family favorite), mint and peppermint.

Vanilla was the one we made the most often, mint was just vanilla with some flavoring added, and then peppermint, which was the most fun but also the most challenging.

I remember one time we made ice cream and when it was ready found out we forgot to put in the sugar.  Then there was the time we discovered the rock salty water had leaked in and the whole batch tasted like a creamy ocean.  But the most common complaint was that the peppermint ice cream had no crunch when it was finished.

As it turns out, making peppermint ice cream and keeping just the right amount of peppermint candy un-dissolved and therefore available for that satisfying crunch with each bite is a multi-fold problem.

First, you need the right type of peppermint candy.  Starlight mints work well as they're slow to dissolve but they only break up into chunks and dust.  Peppermint sticks are too porus giving you have a lovely pink ice cream with no crunch.  Christmas candy canes are perhaps the best option, but are only available seasonaly. 

Second, you need to get the size of the candy right.  We always hammered it on the back porch.  As a child, this is a fun job, but if you over hammer and make small shards and powder, you're back to fully dissolved candy and a non-crunchy pink ice cream result.

And last, there's the timing for putting the candy in during the ice cream making process.  You have to wait until the ice cream is almost done and then add it.  Miscalculate and add it too soon and it all dissolves.  Add it too late and it's vanilla ice cream with chunks of peppermint.

On the whole, it's more difficult to keep the peppermint from dissolving than it is to have too many chunks.  Yesterday for our Easter dinner, my mother-in-law wanted to make peppermint ice cream.  in her new ice cream maker.  She had candy canes from Christmas, starlight mints and all the ingredients for the ice cream.

As a nice bonus, my mother was here as well and so she asked for our advice on the crushing, quantity and timing of the peppermint.  Mom and I, from so many full dissolving failures, each gave her our own advice about not crushing up the mint too much, don't add it in until the end and hey, why not add more.  What could be the harm there?

I am here to report my mother-in-law's advisory committee should be fired because hello peppermint crunch.  Full dissolution did not happen.  What we did have was chunks.  Lots of chunks.  Excessive chunks.  We had peppermint candy with a side of ice cream,  My father-in-law loved it. 

Don't misunderstand me, it was good ice cream, but it got me thinking about how too much of a good thing from an appropriately proportioned recipe does not necessairly make the recipe better.  The good news is, we decided to make more ice cream to see if we could improve on our last batch.

I hear them talking about the peppermint ice cream in the kitchen.  I hope there's some left for me...

The BIg Boy Update:  Reacting to everything?  He started having reactions to food when we arrived in Florida for vacation.  He didn't seem to be having any new foods or something we knew he had issues with and yet it seemed to be getting worse.  I think, and we're not completly sure about this but it seems to make sense, that the sun, chlorine pool water and heat are causing or bringing out some facial eczema.  Combine that with lots of pasta that's acidic and red and gets all over him and it's exacerbating an otherwise regular situation.  We've applied cortisone cream and lotion and plan on keeping his skin hydrated to see if that helps.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Up Down.  She has integrated the words, "up" and "down" into her vocabulary.  She now asks for "down" to be put down.  If she's in a high chair she will even ask for up and then down.  I'm not sure if this is because she tries one word and then the other when she doesn't get the reaction she wants or if she's just trying words that might convey to you rhat she wants out.

Someone Once Said:  Sharpie darling, you are a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix. Is that a compliment? Certainly! It means you’re so sharp you spot the slightest flaw.