Hey out there Ice Cream Club! You look like you’ve got it all together! I sure wish I felt that way. While I had a pretty decent week this past week, I didn’t do much on the ice cream front. I even messed up a batch, because I let time get away from me and the milk in the base passed the expiry date.
The batch that didn’t make it was the corn ice cream I’ve been anticipating pretty heavily. I’ve made it in previous years, and it’s a subtle, sweet corny flavour with an extra smooth texture thanks to the natural cornstarch. I cut the niblets from the cob, and then blend them with milk and let them steep as long as I can. Then I make a custard out of the milk, and strain out the corn. This batch didn’t get to the custard stage. Sad but true.
I hate wasting food, because there’s very few excuses for it these days. The news is full of hungry people and deep carbon footprints. Making sure we eat what we buy is important, and if the exposure to how our supply lines work because of Covid-19 doesn’t show you how much goes into every morsel of food, then I don’t know what to say. The expired milk and the wasted corn do not speak well of me as a resident of the planet, and even though it’s too late to do anything but compost the mixture, I have to make sure to learn from it.
One of the more important lessons I’ve learned from making ice cream is how much the timing matters. The expiry of your dairy and eggs is crucial to note, in large part because you may not be using it all at once, and each of the individual products expire at different rates. In an ideal world, you’d simply buy what you needed on the day of production. But the world is hardly ideal or simple, and buying in quantity for price reasons, or being unable to shop at will are realities for a lot of people.
Ingredient expiry becomes extra important when life rears its ugly head. I was a bit burnt out this week on making ice creams. It’s quite a lot of work, especially the clean up, and while my enthusiasm and curiosity usually overrides fatigue, not this week. Putting off finishing the corn mix was a daily procrastination, until the point of no return. It could have been any number of little reasons, too, including ones I could do nothing about. Whatever the reason, I had to toss something I planned to enjoy eating. Food only for thought.
Since I don’t have much practical ice cream stuff to talk about this week, I’ve written a separate post about Cookies in Ice Cream. While it’s not a firm goal, I can envision writing a book about ice cream in future, and posts like this are pretty much what the stuff of it would be.
While I plan to make more ice creams soon, I’m not going to push things. Though in the name of good timing, I have to consider the local peach and corn crops this week. Putting that off to next year is regrettable, and supporting local farmers is more important than ever. In the meantime, I’m going to try and do more posts like the Cookies in Ice Cream, and flesh out the site.
Thanks as always for reading, Ice Cream Club! You’re the best. In this last official week of summer, I hope you’re found on a porch somewhere, or socially distanced in a park or on a beach. Safe any which way. With a great big drippy two-or-more scoop cone. Or an architecturally precarious sundae. Or just a little bowl of frozen heaven. You deserve it! You are awesome, and your life matters! Black Lives Matter!
The Ice Cream Club 