Coffee Ice Cream Pie

One of my favorite parts of our wedding planning is the fact that we'll be having an ice cream bar.  Yeah.  Ice. Cream. Bar.  Need I say more?

And the Comfy Cow here in town will be providing said ice cream bar.  The Comfy Cow is known for it's unique flavors like Cookie Monster Dough (jam packed with cookies galore!), Cake Batter Up, Red Velvet (we both swear you can distinctly taste the cake AND icing separately, it's amazing), and Banana Nana Fofana. 

But on a recent trip to the Cow, and after a recent blog search (and not to mention this was last week's poll winner), I was after one thing - Freshly Brewed Coffee.  Ice Cream.  This is definitely one of the best coffee flavored ice creams I've ever had, and I could totally eat the whole quart by myself... but I decided to share and put that sucker in an ice cream pie!  So enjoy!

Ingredients:
Adapted from Handle the Heat's recipe

Crust:

10 Oreos
10 Golden Oreos
Pack of Chocolate Graham Crackers (about 10-12)
10 Grasshopper Cookies (they're the Keebler version of Thin Mints)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling:


1 quart coffee-flavored ice cream


Chocolate Ganache Topping:

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350 F. 

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the oreos, golden oreos, graham crackers, and grasshopper cookies.  Pulse until cookies are crumbled finely.  Obviously, I was cleaning out all of the cookies from the pantry.  Feel free to just stick with one cookie for the crust if you'd like, but I thought the crust was pretty awesome with all of the different types - or maybe I just had that Cookie Monster Dough ice cream on the brain and decided to implement it into the crust.

Add the melted butter to the cookies and pulse until the mixture resembles wet sand.

Pat the mixture into a 9 inch spring-form pan, going along the sides, as well. 

Bake the crust for about 10 minutes or until slightly hard.  Place on a cooling rack to cool completely.  Then place in freezer for 30 minutes to harden up.

Meanwhile, remove ice cream from freezer and sit at room temperature to soften.

You can also make the ganache during this time, as well.  Place heavy whipping cream in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer.  Remove from heat and add chocolate chips.  Let sit for about 5 minutes.  Stir in tablespoon of butter until mixture is smooth.  Let cool slightly.

Remove crust from freezer.  Dump ice cream into a large bowl and stir until it becomes smooth and spreadable.  Spread the ice cream on the chilled crust.  Top with ganache and chill for at least 3 hours.

Andy and I both loved this pie!  The jam-packed cookie crust went perfectly with the awesome coffee ice cream.  And it's not just limited to coffee ice cream.  The possibilities are endless with this one!  As the days get hotter, this is the best way to end the day and cool off =)

Hope you guys have a great Wednesday and see you all tomorrow!

Easter Bark

Happy Monday guys!  How was everyone's Easter weekend? 

I spent the day at work, but it was real slow (Thank goodness!), so I even got to come home early.  It rained practically all weekend, too, so I'm lucky that my garden is still there!  I saw many pictures on Facebook of others who had planted flowers and other things, and they were just flooded out!  My heart goes out to you guys and your plants!

"Bark" won the poll on Friday, so I was pretty excited to get right into it!  I looked up a couple of Easter bark recipes and most of them included Jelly Beans - which I'm not a very big fan of, so I decided to go a different route with this.  I told Andy I would be giving him an excuse to buy Easter candy so he picked out a bag (Reese's eggs - of course!) and I picked out a bag (Nestle Crunch eggs).  And the rest is history!

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 lb. unsweetened or dark chocolate, chopped (I used some gourmet 98.5% - but if you can't take it that high, feel free to scale down to whatever suits you)
1 cup almonds, chopped
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, chopped
1 cup Nestle Crunch Eggs, chopped
White chocolate
Food Coloring

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Slowly melt the semi sweet and unsweetened chocolate in a double boiler over the stove, stirring occasionally.  When chocolate is about 3/4 melted, take bowl off of heat and stir to melt the remaining chocolate.

Stir in almonds, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds.  Coat the nuts well in the chocolate.

Finally, add the chopped peanut butter eggs and crunch eggs.  Mix well.

Spread the mixture onto the parchment paper in an even layer.  Place baking sheet in the freezer to let chocolate set, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt white chocolate over double boiler (or microwave) until at a "drizzling" consistency.  If using more than one color, separate into 2 or 3 bowls.  Then add a couple drops of each color to it's relative bowl.  Take chocolate out of freezer and drizzle each white chocolate color on top.  Place back in freezer to set for about 5 to 10 more minutes.

Peel parchment paper from chocolate and break into bark pieces. 

At first, I thought the unsweetened chocolate would be a little too strong, but the semi-sweet chocolate and the Reese's & Crunch eggs really balanced it out.  The chocolate had just enough sweetness to it!  I even convinced myself that this was pretty healthy because it's loaded with nuts!  Wouldn't you have liked to have your Easter basket filled with this?!  I know I was glad to!

What's your favorite type of bark?  Have a great rest of your Monday guys!

Homemade Peppermint Patties

Just wish I would have taken a picture of the insides!

Peppermint is one of my favorite flavors during this time of year.  It's no surprise that in the goodie bags I made for people this year, I had 2 peppermint treats!  I mean, seriously... who doesn't like peppermint? 

These peppermint patties were extremely easy, and once I got the hang of dipping them in chocolate, were pretty quick too.

Sorry I've got such a short post today, but this month's bookclub meeting is meeting at my house, and that means I've got tons of cooking to do today!  Details will be posted tomorrow, I'm sure!

Ingredients:
Adapted From What Megan's Making's Recipe

A surprise is hidden inside!

 2 & 1/4 cups powdered sugar, plus 1/4 cup for kneading and rolling
1 & 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 & 1/2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
1 tablespoon shortening
pinch of salt
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate morsels

In a medium bowl, beat 2 & 1/4 cups powdered sugar with corn syrup, water, peppermint extract, shortening, and a pinch of salt using an electric mixer at medium speed until just combined.  Dust a work surface with the remaining powdered sugar and knead "dough" until smooth. 

Roll the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper on a large baking sheet into a 7- to 8-inch round (about 1/4 inch thick).  Place the baking sheet in the freezer and chill until firm, about 15 minutes.

Remove top sheet of paper and sprinkle top of the round with powdered sugar.  Replace top sheet, then flip round over and repeat sprinkling on other side.

Cut out as many rounds as possible with round cutter, transferring to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Freeze again until firm, at least 10 minutes.  If you want, you can use scraps to roll out and cut out more circles.

Meanwhile, you can make the chocolate coating.

Melt 3/4 of the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl.  Do it in 30 seconds intervals, that way you don't burn the chocolate.  Add remaining chocolate and stir until all melted.  Let cool slightly.

This next part, you want to do sort of fast, because the peppermint dough will get warm, and not let the chocolate set properly. 

Take peppermint rounds out of freezer.
 
Balance 1 peppermint round on a fork and submerge in melted chocolate, letting excess drip off and scraping back of fork against rim of bowl if necessary, then return patty to sheet. Coat remaining rounds, rewarming chocolate, if necessary (I didn't have to do this).   Place patties in fridge to speed up setting of chocolate.  Let stand for at least 1 hour before serving!

I'm sure even Santa would have enjoyed these!

Like I said, these were pretty easy, and made great goodie bag gifts!  I know, Christmas has passed, but it still doesn't mean you can't enjoy these little guys all for yourself!  Share if you want to!  Enjoy!