THE NIBBLE Gourmet News & Views
Trends, Products & Items Of Note In The World Of Specialty Foods
Read all of our content on TheNibble.com, the online magazine about specialty food.
Archive for Desserts & Ice Cream
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July 1, 2008 at 8:00 am
· Filed under Wine, Top Pick Of The Week, Desserts & Ice Cream
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Our two favorite flavors of Mercer’s Wine
Ice Cream, Ala Port and Red Raspberry
Chardonnay, can be served at the most
elegant dinner party. Photography by
Saidi Granados. |
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Like ice cream? Like wine? Here’s something to make you glad you’re over 21: Mercer’s Wine Ice Cream. Made with 5% alcohol, you must be of age to enjoy—no, to wallow in—such ice cream happiness. July is National Ice Cream Month, and we’re in love with this wine ice cream.
We first discovered Mercer’s two years ago. This upstate New York dairy had a standout Port ice cream and three other flavors of wine ice cream that were a distant second. A lot of work has gone into making all four flavors medalists at THE NIBBLE Ice Cream Olympics, and two new flavors are about to join them.
All of the flavors are an ice cream and wine lover’s dream. In Ala Port, Cherry Merlot, Chocolate Cabernet, Peach White Zinfandel, Red Raspberry Chardonnay and Royal White Riesling, these seductive frozen dreams rock. As they soften in your dish, they evolve into an ice cream cocktail. No one we know is satisfied with just one serving, so here’s our advice: Don’t show restraint; order two of everything and call over your nearest and dearest to celebrate. Scoop up the details in the full review. And for a great line of wine sorbets, read our review of Wine Cellar Sorbets, another Top Pick Of The Week. |
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June 23, 2008 at 3:06 pm
· Filed under Top Pick Of The Week, Desserts & Ice Cream
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Often, people as, us to recommend brownies. We always ask about the recipient and the occasion. Some companies sell brownies in very nice packaging that are too sweet for the sophisticated palate. We’d send them to a kid, but not to a fine food enthusiast. Others, like the brownies made with Dagoba organic chocolate by artisan chocolatier Chokola’j, are very fine, indeed. But they are too elegant to snarf down at a picnic or barbecue, and too delicate for grab-and-go.
Enter Geoff & Drew’s. There are three flavors, each a variation on the same moist, fudgy brownie. Chocolate Chip is the most classic, Toffee has a subtle caramel topping and Mint will blow your socks off with a large chocolate peppermint pattie embedded in the top—a simple but brilliant idea and our favorite idea to borrow thus far this year. The caveat emptor on these brownies is that they melt in your mouth so easily that one brownie seems like only half a portion. To compensate, we drink an extra tall glass of milk with each. The brownies are individually shrink-wrapped for shelf life as well as easy grab-and-go. Take a closer look in the full review on TheNibble.com. Caution: Photos may cause drooling. |
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May 15, 2008 at 2:33 pm
· Filed under Desserts & Ice Cream, Tip Of The Day
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Can your creation compete with Palapa Azul’s popsicles, a Nibble Top Pick? Read our review.
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Celebrate the warm weather by investing in something you’ll use all season long: an ice pop mold. Exercise your creativity and impress guests with your own frozen treats. Homemade lemonade and fresh raspberries make a great combination, as does strawberry yogurt with semi-sweet chocolate chips. Try your hand at multi-layered pops by filling the mold only partially, letting the liquid freeze, then re-opening the molds and filling them with a second (or even third) liquid. For example, try alternating bands of spicy ginger ale and fresh limeade. The endless array of flavor combinations will keep you experimenting throughout the summer. And the brine from pickle bottles makes delicious, refreshing ice pops. Freeze it, don’t toss it! Try it with Rick’s Picks Gourmet Pickled Vegetables, a Nibble Top Pick. |
| For more frozen treats, check out the Gourmet Desserts & Ice Cream section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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May 1, 2008 at 2:02 pm
· Filed under Desserts & Ice Cream, Tip Of The Day
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| One of our favorite desserts is also the simplest to make. Combine mixed fruit juices (we use Knudsen’s black cherry and raspberry) or melted sorbet with yogurt, milk or cream. You can make the soup as rich or as dietetic as you like, by using nonfat dairy products. If you want a thicker consistency, reduce the juice in a saucepan with a cinnamon stick, some lemon and other spices to taste. Then add chopped seasonal fruits, whole berries, melon balls and/or scoops of ice cream or sorbet for a festive presentation. For more soup recipes, check out the Gourmet Soups And Stocks section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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There’s nothing more refreshing than cold fruit soup on a warm day. Here we have chilled papaya and watermelon.
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April 22, 2008 at 9:06 pm
· Filed under Desserts & Ice Cream, Tip Of The Day
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The same lemon curd you’d enjoy on breakfast scones can do double-duty for dessert. |
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Lemon curd and its siblings, like lime curd and blood orange curd, are a versatile addition to the pantry. Serve them with strawberries and other dipping fruit for a casual dessert or a snack. Or spoon curd into tart shells for an instant fancy dessert—instead of one large tart, serve three mini tarts with different curd flavors, topped with a different type of berry. Use curd to garnish bundt cakes and pound cake. Serve it with plain cookies. And of course, spread it on toast, muffins and scones (the scones at the left are from Iveta Scones, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week). We even use it to make “dessert pasta” with angel hair and slivered almonds. Keep a jar or two on hand and you’ll always have something interesting to serve to guests. Read more about desserts and fruit spreads in the Dessert Sauces & Toppings section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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March 8, 2008 at 6:47 pm
· Filed under Desserts & Ice Cream, Trends
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| As part of a recent 2008 Flavor Trends luncheon, McComick & Company allowed us to taste the most menu, including frozen desserts prepared by artisan gelateria Il Laboratorio del Gelato. Rose Poppyseed Gelato was a revelation, making us wonder why no one has thought to do poppyseed ice cream before—don’t we all enjoy a good slice of lemon poppyseed cake? Here, the flavor of rose tasted almost peachlike, making us count the days to peach season so we can make Peach Poppyseed as well. Lychee Lemongrass Sorbetto was so exquisite, our tongue froze eating too much of it. Chile Chocolate Gelato, made with ancho chile, should take off big-time at better Mexican restaurants and homemade ice cream shops. We actually wrote this post a month ago, but haven’t had the heart to publish it because we are so tortured because there’s NO MORE GELATO. Thai Chile Chocolate is available from the store and website, but much as we love the spicy chocolate, we’ve been obsessing about the other two. Jon Snyder, when will you end our misery by putting them on the menu? |
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Rose and Poppyseed Gelato from Il Laboratorio del Gelato, inspired by McCormick’s 2008 flavor trends. |
| Read more about our favorite ice creams in the Desserts Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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February 19, 2008 at 7:12 pm
· Filed under Special Sweets, Desserts & Ice Cream, Entertaining, Tip Of The Day
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| Invite food-loving friends to a fun, “pot luck” brunch, cocktails or coffee klatsch. Ask everyone to bring a favorite specialty food or beverage appropriate to the occasion, that the other guests would enjoy tasting. They’ll also need to bring the accoutrement(s) required to serve their food (e.g., bread or crackers for spreads, crudités for dips and dressings). For brunch, for example, guests might bring quince preserves, sun-dried tomato peanut butter, Swedish flatbread and guava nectar—foods most guests haven’t experienced. Or, they could bring their favorite brand of artisan sausage. Set the foods on a sideboard, cart or other “tasting bar” along with cards that indicate who chose them and where they can be purchased. We’d probably pick something from our Top Pick Of The Week foods—the 52 best products we taste each year. You can have the Top Picks emailed to you, or sent via RSS. |
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 We’d bring Wine Cellar Sorbets, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week. We find them irresistible. |
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February 15, 2008 at 8:07 am
· Filed under Diet Nibbles, Snacks, Desserts & Ice Cream, Recipes, Sugar-Free, Tip Of The Day
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| If you’re ready to switch gears after chocolate-filled Valentine’s Day festivities, fruit kabobs with yogurt dip are a sweet transition—low-calorie and healthy, too. For a snack or light dessert, simply skewer pineapple chunks, melon balls, berries, grapes, orange segments—whatever catches your eye in the produce section—in interesting patterns (or, serve them as fruit salad). You can make an easy yogurt dip from one cup of vanilla yogurt, 2 tablespoons of honey and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. The diet dip version substitutes plain, fat-free yogurt and 2 packets of sweetener—hold the honey. Our favorite plain, fat-free yogurt, FAGE Total, is so delicious, we’re happy with the fat-free version. Read our review of FAGE Total Yogurt. Find more low-calorie foods in the Diet Nibbles Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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Make fruit kabobs with berries, grapes, pineapple, etc.; or just enjoy this delicious and healthy snack as a fruit salad with yogurt topping. |
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February 14, 2008 at 1:58 pm
· Filed under Special Sweets, Desserts & Ice Cream, Recipes, Valentine's Day
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| If you still don’t have a special Valentine’s Day dessert, you can pick up these ingredients and have something special in 5 minutes. Kozy Shack, Chocolate Covered Strawberries all-natural pudding and pie filing is the first in a new line of Limited Edition products from the pudding company. This flavor, available through April 1st, drops large pieces of strawberry into a very satisfying chocolate pudding. The recipe for the Chocolate-Strawberry Cream Pie is on the package, but we’ve included it below. The pudding is delicious right out of the package and as an ingredient in other desserts.
Ingredients
- 1-8″ premade pie shell (regular or chocolate crust)
- 22-ounce container Kozy Shack Chocolate-Covered Strawberries Pudding
- Whipped topping
- Fresh strawberries and shaved chocolate to garnish
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Make this pie in 5 minutes with Kozy Shack’s Chocolate Covered Strawberries pudding and pie filling. |
Preparation
1. Pour pudding into pie shell and spread evenly.
2. Cover entire surface of pie with whipped topping.
3. Place in freezer for an hour.
4. Remove, slice and serve. Visit KozyShack.com for more recipes, and check out the recipe collection in the Desserts & Ice Cream Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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February 12, 2008 at 3:17 pm
· Filed under Desserts & Ice Cream, Daily Food Holidays
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Mother Sperry’s Plum Pudding is an artisan product from Seattle. You can buy it at ChefShop.com. |
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“Who on earth would strive to create a National Plum Pudding Day in America,” we wondered. This is the boiled pudding dessert made of dried fruit that is traditionally served in the U.K. on Christmas Day (it’s also known as Christmas pudding). You can’t even get an American to eat a piece of fruit cake, let alone a dark, dried fruit and suet concoction, mixed with flour and spices (and related to mince pie, another dish not-so-beloved by Americans). And why would National Plum Pudding day be in the middle of February, rather than around the holidays? (It is available in the U.K. year round.) Plum pudding can be eaten with hard sauce, custard sauce, crème anglaise, lemon cream, etc. With a side of rum raisin ice cream, custard sauce and enough flaming brandy poured upon it, some Americans might warm up to it. We say this not to disparage plum pudding—we like a great one. It’s just that it’s not sweet enough for the American palate, and most folks don’t like puddings made with suet, which is beef or mutton fat (that’s pure saturated fat, folks—all the cholesterol without the flavor of butter). |
| The bigger issue, vis-a-vis the scramble to name every day of the year a food holiday, would seem that we’ve forgotten that February 12 is the birthday of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln was born in 1809 in a one-room log cabin on his parents’ farm in Hardin County (now part of LaRue County), Kentucky. Might not a more appropriate holiday for February 12th be Bûche de Noel Day, honoring Honest Abe with that charming buttercream cake decorated to look like a log? Just a thought. Those of you from Kentucky or Illinois, where the family relocated and Abe began his political career, might think of petitioning to get something more Lincoln-appropriate in the February 12th food holiday slot. Find out how all of these holidays (known as “special observance days”) are enacted…and perhaps you’ll be inspired to petition for your own. National Foie Gras With A Glass Of d’Yquem Day, anyone? |
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