La vie de la crème glacée

Vanilla Ice Cream by David Lebovitz

David Lebovitz makes me want to move to France and make ice cream every day. How much fun is it to tour markets and specialty shops and be inspired by food? Lebovitz's blog, Twitter and Facebook are entertaining and make me want to experiment in my own kitchen.

So far, I've only attempted one of his recipes, the l'opera milkshake. Opera cake is one of my favorite desserts, and it's hard to find it in a small area where I live. At least with this shake, I can capture the flavors of the cake without having to find a French bakery.

L'opera milkshake by David Lebovitz

I made some modifications to his recipe, using fudgesicles instead of chocolate sorbet, skim milk instead of whole milk, Starbucks VIA packs in place of instant espresso and low-fat frozen vanilla yogurt instead of French vanilla ice cream. Either way, it's goodness in a tall glass.

So now, I'm preparing for a big one: No. 25, making ice cream without a machine. I know that these appliances are now cheaper than ever, and I even picked up one over the summer on clearance. I returned it because I didn't see myself making ice cream all the time, and since I want to make Philadelphia-style ice cream (without eggs), it costs more to make the ice cream than to just pick up a few pints of Ben & Jerry.

My goal this week is to make my own ice cream, using the white chocolate sorbet recipe found on Lebovitz's site. In the spirit of Christmas I plan to throw in chocolate mint cookie crumbs for an added crunch. Maybe this will be the first item off my list.