Treats for appetites of every size
I’m a plan-everything-far-in-advance kind of person. Like, if I know I won’t have time to bake, I’ll make two recipes the week before. But sometimes, a whole weekend can work out perfectly with very little planning at all.
I’m always surprised by how much of ice cream making is done over a stovetop. It’s a frozen dessert – I feel like at most I should be mixing the batter at room temperature, and then freezing it. But no, it’s like 20 minutes of stirring over low or medium heat and then using an ice bath after the fact to cool it down. Seems counterintuitive.
This week’s post has been about a month in the making and is wholly inspired by J.P. Licks, an ice cream shop in Harvard Square, which provided dinner in the form of cookies and cake batter ice cream for my roommate and me a couple weeks back. It was life changing, and I have been trying to find the best way to recreate it ever since.
I am currently in London, watching The Queen after spending a day at Stonehenge. Obviously, I am unable to bake at the moment. So instead, I’ve decided to enlighten you all on a dessert that America is missing out on: soft serve ice cream with Flake, a Cadbury chocolate bar that takes the place of jimmies, or chocolate sprinkles. I first had this in Ireland when I was 12, and absolutely loved it. It’s actually the lightest type of ice cream dessert that I willingly eat – usually I go for flavors along the lines of cookie dough. When I …
I had a mildly traumatizing experience this week in the form of food poisoning. I say mildly because in the grand scheme of things, it really isn’t that big of a deal. But as a side effect, there was a period of 4 days where all of the foods I normally love to eat tasted awful to me. For someone that spends much of their time thinking about food, this does qualify as traumatizing.
This is big. Like, bigger than big. This is the first official post on smilesbymeg.com! Huge, huge shout out to my brother, Pete, for such an awesome Christmas present. I now have my own domain, and a new look to go with it!
As I think I mentioned last week, Hurricane Arthur managed to cancel all of the 4th of July events last weekend. That meant that yesterday, the 12th of July, became the night for fireworks and festivities at the waterfront. The condo I’m in for the summer happens to have a perfect panoramic view of the fireworks show, making it the natural location for friends to come and watch. Which, of course, meant I needed to bake.
I find something oddly therapeutic about cutting fruit. I think it started when I came back from college the first time and was beyond excited by the prospect of having fruit other than apples and oranges from the dining hall. So when I went with my dad to the grocery store, we got just about every fruit you can get and I cut it all up and put it in tupperware in the fridge.
Every once in awhile I make something that falls solidly into the category of too good. Usually, I know it’s coming, and I plan accordingly. For example, I know that I’m addicted to Magic Bars, so I made them while I was at my parents’ for a short period of time, knowing I could leave them behind.