ICE CREAM SANDWICH

This is honestly yet another experiment. It worked but it could be improved. One good thing of homemade food is you can customize it according to your liking. For this, I opted to use low fat milk instead of full cream milk for a healthier choice.
An inspiration of this is an ice cream in a box that I had in India way back when we resided there, and it was really easy serving it in slices than scoops. That made me think one day, I will make an ice cream sandwich of my own.
I had made ice creams before in different flavors and I’m trying something different with a different way of serving it. The ice cream is served in slices like sliced bread instead of usual way of serving it by scoops. This way, it is easier to serve and you don’t have to wait for the ice cream to melt a little bit in order to scoop. So the idea is to make an ice cream in a loaf bread shape.
For this recipe, I made a separate thin layer of angel cake for the base and the top of the ice cream. I will not post the procedure of the cake here since the post is an ice cream, I may post the cake recipe some other time.
For this recipe, I did not use an ice cream maker and it turns just fine.
The verdict: It was just average, but will soon make it again improving on the flavors, H suggested adding berries in it, and if I could find real vanilla pods out of luck would be a plus! And oh, I should put more chocolate next time.

Procedure:
1. Make the ice cream. Basic Ice Cream recipe is posted in my older post. You may access it HERE. I can’t find real vanilla pods here, so I used only vanilla essence which is incomparable to the real vanilla pod. You may substitute the flavoring with any other flavor you like.

2. Assemble the sandwich:

Using a rectangular shaped container, place a cling film and press it with your fingers covering the whole area of the container and overlay extra at the sides for the top.

Place the thin layer of cake which is cut into the same size of the base of the container.

Add ice cream mixture and spread it on top of the cake.

Add another thin layer of cake on top of the ice cream mixture.

Add melted chocolates on top of the ice cream mixture. Add the remaining ice cream mixture.

With the remaining cling film that was overlaid on the sides, fold it inside ways to close the mixture in and close with the lid of the container.
Freeze for 4 hours.


Serve in slices by cutting a knife just like slicing a loaf of bread.

Egg Tart

My first attempt of making egg tart. It wasn’t too bad, except that we both consumed 18 tarts for just hubby and me. Thinking of all the butter, eggs in it is not healthy.

It was a trial and error for me coz I don’t have recipe to follow but I was sure of the pastry would work coz I have tried it many times on a larger tart. Lately I used the same with APPLE TARTE. The only thing I wasn’t sure of was the egg mixture which was a guess by what I’ve tasted in some café. It wasn’t too bad but it was not perfect. The filling fluffed up a little bit and hollow at the bottom. Now, I know where I went wrong. I didn’t put water in the egg mixture. Hmmm, there’s always room for improvement. They taste great however; it was just the filling that wasn’t the same as what is available in the cafés around here. I have to do it again and that time, I’ll post the proportion. For the sake of “record” I have to post what I’ve done to avoid the same slight mistake. This yielded 18 tarts.

Note that the pastry has to be made in advance.

Ingredients

Filling:

3 eggs

1 cup evaporated milk

¼ tsp. vanilla essence

½ cup white sugar

Sweet Pastry Dough:

½ Cup and 1 Tbsp. margarine

½ cup icing sugar (sifted)

1 egg

2 ½ Cup All Purpose Flour

1/8 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla essence

Procedure:

Make the Sweet Pastry Dough:

1. In a mixing bowl, mix margarine and icing sugar until creamy, add eggs and mix for another minute until soft and creamy.

2. Add flour and baking powder. Continue beating.

3. Add vanilla essence

4. Bring the mixture altogether to form a dough and mix with the hand.. Form the dough into a ball, Cover with Plastic Clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour.

5. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

6. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and knead on a floured surface. Divide dough into 3 portions. Divide each portion into 6. Place each small portion in 1 tart mould and push to the bottom and sides to form tart shells.

7. Make the filling by mixing all the ingredients slowly with a wire whisk taking care not to make the mixture bubbly.

8. Pour the filling mixture in each tart shell until ¾ full.

9. Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees C for 20 minutes or until the filling has completely set and the tart shells turn golden brown.

Note for next time: for the filling; Add ½ cup water and reduce milk by ½ cup.