Affogato (Italian espresso and ice cream or gelato)

Affogato

In Italian, “affogato” means “drowned” or “drowned in coffee“…. and refers to an Italian espresso-based beverage (or dessert) in which hot espresso is poured over a scoop of ice cream or gelato. In it’s simplest form, you would just pair a shot of espresso with a scoop of vanilla ice cream to make an Affogato. [...]

Homemade Kona Coffee Ice Cream

Homemade Kona Coffee Ice Cream

Today’s high (temperature) was 90 Degrees (F)!  (32.33 Degrees C).  That’s pretty hot for San Diego in April!  Growing up in “The Valley*”, a high of 90 Degrees wasn’t really a big deal… I mean we had days over 100 degrees pretty often.  Back then, we didn’t have “snow days”.  We had “heat days”.  But [...]

Mika’s Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce

Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce

It was my brother’s birthday last week and instead of a birthday cake, he requested “Brownie Sundaes with Hot Fudge Sauce”.  I decided to use my favorite brownie recipe as the base for these sundaes and thought that this would be a good time to post an easy-to make hot fudge sauce recipe – one [...]

Homemade Green Tea Ice Cream

Homemade Green Tea Ice Cream

Tomorrow (Tuesday 9/23) is the fall equinox… which means that today is officially the LAST day of summer.  :(  Before we say goodbye to all the things that mean “summer” to us – I wanted to post one more ice cream recipe before we segue into all my upcoming autumn recipes.  Green tea ice cream [...]

Homemade Macadamia Nut Ice Cream

Macadamia Nut Ice Cream

Last  year, I visited the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Plantation in Hilo, Hawaii.  We got there about 1 hour before closing – just enough time to wander outside and check out some of the Macadamia Nut trees, buy some vacuum-sealed packs of Macadamia nuts to bring home, and sample some of their awesome Macadamia Nut [...]

Homemade Non-Dairy Vanilla Ice Cream (Lactose-free Ice Cream)

Non-dairy Vanilla Ice Cream

Do you need to make ice cream for someone lactose intolerant or someone who is avoiding dairy?  This is a good base recipe for lactose-free vanilla ice cream – just use mocha mix non-dairy creamer instead of cream and milk.  Texture-wise, it isn’t quite as creamy as real dairy vanilla ice cream – it’s a [...]

Homemade Cheesecake Ice Cream

Homemade Cheesecake Ice Cream

I know it’s supposed to be “winter” and all… but it’s 81 Degrees outside right now!  (And last weekend, we had a high of 87 Degrees!!!!)  Has summer started early or something???  I walked outside with my jacket on, promptly took it off, then had to blast the air conditioning in my car…  (My apologies [...]

Homemade Azuki Bean Ice Cream (Sweet Red Bean Ice Cream)

Homemade Azuki Bean Ice Cream

Now that I have my Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker, I’ve been making all kinds of ice cream lately.  Recently, I posted a recipe for Strawberry Ice Cream – which was really good… but I wanted to try making something a bit harder to find.  You can go to the market and choose from a bunch [...]

Homemade Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

Homemade Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

Have you noticed a lot of ice cream labels these days?  Many of them no longer say ‘Ice Cream’… they actually say ‘Frozen Dairy Dessert’!!!  What happened to ‘Ice Cream’ and why are we all eating ‘Frozen Dairy Dessert’ instead?  I suspect it has something to do with the “healthy eating” movement.  People have become [...]