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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

a giveaway of dried sour cherry ice cream, coconut sugar threads and a pastry for your search engine fun


Have I ever told you how much I hate SEO (search engine optimization) well I do. Every blogger and their granny (yup she blogs too now) are desperately trying to get their piece of the pie and in order to do that you need to use key words so when people are using search engines (like google for example) they will land on your site first, ideally. Not only are people following along like turkeys to the slaughter house with this blatant use of keywords they are often hogging prime space with their drivel, well today my drivel is gunning for space. Dried sour cherry ice cream with a cream cheese tart and coconut sugar threads and if I had a giveaway I would be giving that away too.

I dont mean to sound so bitter because I am really not - I am more peeved than anything else. Creativity is flushed in favor of what is common and banal. Typically when I am searching for something I want to find what is more unique than what is regular so thats maybe where the differences lie. Its precisely this uniqueness that I am fighting against with this post. I whipped some cream I froze it into ice cream how unique can that be? I am even going to post the very common recipe.

Vanilla Ice Cream with Dried Sour Cherries

1/2 cup sugar
dash of salt
2 cups half and half
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
20 dried cherries that have soaked over night in warm water

Combine sugar salt and 1/2 the milk in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until mixture almost boils then reduce heat to low.

Gradually stir about half of this hot mixture into the beaten eggs to temper then incorporate all together and heat until it thickens stirring constantly, remove from heat and refrigerate 2 hours.

Whip the other cup of milk with the vanilla flavoring until soft peaks form and fold this into the chilled mixture and pour this along with the cherries into your ice cream maker and proceed as per its instructions. The cherries will color the ice cream slightly pink.

I made two batches - one like this with the reconstituted cherries and another smaller batch of plain vanilla (that I couldnt keep my spoon out of and almost ate all of it before creating this post) that I mixed in some chopped up dried cherries after the ice cream was made and frozen.

Did I forget to mention that this is for the MarxFoods Ridiculously Delicious Challenge? Oh, well it is. All the contestants received 8 mystery ingredients (the same ones) and we were to use two of them to complete this challenge. I chose the dried sour cherries and the coconut sugar resisting all temptation to make something using every single one. I made ice cream and tarts and I spun the sugar into threads.

The tarts are simply puff pastry folded artistically with a filling of cream cheese, coconut sugar and dried sour cherries then baked at 400 until puffy golden and delicious.

The coconut sugar was heated on a very low flame until hotter than lava and then whipped and drizzled and teased into threads.

Two scoops, one of each of the cherry vanilla and vanilla cherry, a tart and some sugar threads. I used my very antique ice cream scoop but you can easily make quenelles using two spoons. March 1-4 I will be annoyingly asking for your votes so gear up.

31 comments:

Unknown said...

SEO is the pits. But this dessert isn't!!!

mely said...

You have great creativity, not doubt about it. :)

I love the ice cream scoop very original.

Mely

PS. I do have a giveaway, I hope you stop by.

lisa is cooking said...

I love that quenelle scoop! And, the pink of the dried cherry ice cream, and the coconut sugar threads. Good luck with the challege.

Marjie said...

I ignore the SEO for my personal blog. Probably why I don't have many readers. Your ice cream sounds very tempting!

FOODalogue said...

Love the look of the sugar threads...wish I had a taste.

Christina said...

Wow, you're way ahead of me! I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my ingredients. I hope I have as good of luck as you did! Your tarts are beautiful and I LOVE what you did with the coconut sugar! Those threads are awesome! :)

Rebecka said...

Christo, Yet, another amazing dish from your kitchen! Ice cream is my one guilty pleasure!
I love Marx Foods challenges and their amazingly, adventurous ingredients! I just won a challenge using their Szechuan buttons!
I can't wait to see what you make using the next ingredients!
I know you'll do great in the challenge!

♥peachkins♥ said...

I am drooling at the sight of the ice cream! and I love your scooper...


peachkins at The Peach Kitchen

Tiffany said...

There's a lot going on here! And it all looks delish!

Anonymous said...

I think I like when you get peeved-the result is absolutely delicious masterpieces! Nice work with the sugar threads as well; if you don't win I saw this one is rigged as well.

Unknown said...

You had me at sour cherries! Throw in cream cheese and puff pastry and it's almost impossible for me to not start drooling.

Anonymous said...

This looks like a 5 star dessert for sure, wow!!!

Barbara said...

A common recipe? I don't think so. Very inventive is what I call it. Ice cream is my downfall anyway.
Love what you did with the coconut sugar...that would be fun, actually.

zippiknits...sometimes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
zippiknits...sometimes said...

Great Recipe. It looks a little frightening but obviously it tastes good. You, after all, ate most of the vanilla ice cream.

My blog, it started out one way and quickly went another. I clearly don't give a flying fig about SEO, paying no attention at all to it. I care about beauty, and try hard to stick to that but right now we have Full on Ugly running around with pitchforks and torches. How resistible is that for a beauty blogger?

Lella

2/24/2011 1:36 PM

Sam Hoffer / My Carolina Kitchen said...

Those coconut sugar threads are very impressive Christo. No one would ever doubt your creativity. Good luck (as if you need it) in the Marx challenge.
Sam

Kita said...

I really try not to think to hard on the SEO thing. I tend to find my food ideas on the 'foodporn' sites and ignore the rest. I agree with the earlier commenter though, that if this is the type of thing you make when your peeved - I think you should be angry more often. ;)

Ciao Chow Linda said...

maybe the recipe is common, but the results are spectacular. Pass me a spoon.

Anette said...

Mmmmm! Fantastic!

Anonymous said...

Looks delish and I love your blog!!!

Tangled Noodle said...

I still don't understand what SEO is, even though I'm inundated with spam email and tweets urging me to 'maximize it'. Wait, maybe I've got it mixed up with 'enlargement' ads...

Anyway, love the ice cream but I'm most excited over the coconut sugar. That is one ingredient that I have absolutely no problem finding here in Manila! I am definitely going to try making the threads.

briarrose said...

Beautiful dish...I love the shapes of the tarts.

Velva said...

Lately, I am hearing a lot about how to maximize my "SEO" I don't pay much attention. Blogging is too much fun. Once it becomes work, I am not having fun anymore.

Speaking of fun...I can see that you were anticipating the Summer with ice cream, and other delightful treats.

As always, it is a work of art.

Cheers.
Velva

Angie's Recipes said...

This is a piece of art! The scoop looks really cool.

Anna C said...

Christo,given my recent giveaway contest, I qualify as on of the guilty parties. I don't think it just about SEO, but rather a means to thank readers for their support. Anyway, you definitely have my vote on this anything but "common" creation. Love the coconut sugar.

Ken said...

I never hear about these contests til they are all done. Oh well all for the best I suppose. I never would or could beat this entry. Really a master stroke from a master. GREG Sippity Sup (on a friend's computer)

Unknown said...

i know what seo stands for, and that's about it! i just blog b/c i enjoy it and get to share things i've tried/made :)

coconut sugar threads!? so fun... maybe i'll have to try spinning sugar sometime, but i'll need a tutorial!!

Vickie said...

Christo, you did it again! This is a perfect use of dried cherries and I would never have thought of sugar threads! Your presentation is incredible as always and I'm in love with your antique scoop. I still look for that silver food pusher since you described it. One of these days . . .

PS - you posted a recipe?!!

Donna Currie said...

Really nice job, and I love making ice cream. It looks like a lot of us used those cherries - perhaps to keep from eating all of them before the contest was over? That was my motivation - those things are awesome, and I'll bet they were amazing in the ice cream. Good luck with the contest!

The Food Hunter said...

This looks wonderful...good luck to you.

Leslie Uhl said...

I just love the ice cream and especially what you did with the coconut sugar! Beautiful and inventive!
Leslie

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