extirpate

While prepping for my online teen lit class, I had to read a lot of different books to narrow down the reading list. A couple of genres gave me a little trouble, particularly the nonfiction and science fiction sections. I challenge myself to pick a diverse group of books and they all have to have been published within the last year. Distopian scifi is still HUGE and I really wanted to steer away from that, but trying to find something that's accessible (students have to be able to locate and read the book, after all) is also really important.

As I was reading Vault of Dreamers for one of the scifi contenders, I ran across this passage:

At lunch, Linus was out on the terrace of the dining hall, serving ice cream for students with Franny and another staffer. They all wore cheery red bib aprons for the occasion, and Linus put his arm into the work of scooping. He passed me a big bowl of chocolate-chunk-coffee-cinnamon swirl and abandoned his post when I came through the line (190).

That description of the ice cream won me over for this Novel Food entry.

The premise of the story is a cross between the movie EdTV, the television show Dollhouse and even has elements of the book Divergent: teens are competing to win a spot at a prestigious school that broadcasts the daily lives of the artsy students. Part of the deal, though, is that the students who make it through the competition have to sleep for 12 hours at night in pods, via sleeping pill. Enter our main character: Rosie. One night Rosie decides to fake taking her sleeping pill and stays up just to watch the stars. After she returns from the roof, she notices one of the sleeping pods is flanked by a man and a woman, who are talking in hushed tones, and decides it warrants further investigation. What she uncovers is much larger than she anticipated and now she's got to figure out how to prove what she's learned is true*.

There is quite a bit of eating going on in the book, but that description of the ice cream kept coming back to haunt me. How would I concoct such a thing?

I decided the chocolate chunk was easy: just add chocolate chunks at the end of mixing. As for the coffee and cinnamon bits, I went with a coffee base, and then swirled in the cinnamon.


Double-Coffee Ice Cream
from The Best of Coffee 

2/3 c coarsely ground beans
2½ c milk
1 c heavy cream
½ c sugar
pinch of salt
7 egg yolks
½ c sugar
2 T coffee liqueur (such as Kahlúa)

In a heavy medium-sized saucepan, combine the coffee, milk, cream, ½ c sugar and salt; bring to a boil over low heat. Once boiling, remove from heat, cover and let steep for 30 minutes. Strain milk mixture and discard coffee beans. Rinse the pan and return the milk mixture to it.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the yolks and ½ c sugar until the yolks are pale yellow. Slowly drizzle in 1 c of the milk mixture to temper the eggs, whisking the entire time. Then add the egg mixture to the saucepan. Cook over low heat, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens (about 12 minutes). It should coat the back of a wooden spoon. Remove the pan from the heat and strain the mixture through a sieve.

Chill for 30 minutes, then stir in the liqueur. Let cool completely. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze accordingly.

To make this the special ice cream, add 1 c chocolate chunks right before pouring the ice cream mix into your freezer container. Add one third of the ice cream to your container, then swirl half the cinnamon syrup (recipe below). Add another third of ice cream, then the other half of the syrup. Add the last third of ice cream and freeze until solid.

My notes: This cinnamon syrup base is strong, so you may not need all of it. I debated over a couple other recipes--one that uses honey and one that uses maple syrup, but didn't want any competing flavors. I also was not planning to make a healthy version of ice cream. Do not cheat on any of this--I rushed a couple of things (see the syrup sitting on ice?) and my ice cream suffered for it. For one thing, all my chocolate fell to the bottom of the ice cream, as it wasn't cold enough to stay suspended. The other? My cinnamon syrup absorbed into the whole thing, so I don't actually have swirls...

Don't want a lot of liqueur around? Get one of those airplane sized bottles!

Book recommendation: Vault of Dreamers by Caragh M. O'Brien
Recipe recommendation: Chocolate-Chunk-Coffee-Cinnamon Swirl Ice Cream
Music recommendation: Blackthorn Folly




*Just so you know: this book is pretty much a set-up book for the whole trilogy, so the scifi aspect doesn't even enter until halfway through the book and the ending is extremely abrupt. I rather enjoyed the slow build and the fact the author took her time before jumping to the main plotline.