Tuesday we made some awesome caramel sauce with our extra cream. But I didn’t use all of the cream. So yesterday we used a little more and tried butterscotch. I got the recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It is so simple to make (only takes about 5 minutes) and is sooooo good. I like the butterscotch even better than the caramel. Rebecca and I sampled a little on homemade vanilla ice cream. A little piece of heaven 🙂  I think we might have homemade butterscotch sauce on hand more often now 🙂

Butterscotch

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed organic brown cane sugar or sucanat
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp. unrefined sea salt, plus more to taste
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract, plus more to taste

Melt butter in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar, cream and salt and whisk until well blended. Bring to a very gentle boil and cook for about five minutes, whisking occasionally.

Remove from heat and add one teaspoon of the vanilla extract, stirring to combine. Dip a spoon in the sauce and carefully taste the sauce (without burning your tongue!) to see if you want to add additional pinches of salt or splashes of vanilla. Tweak it to your taste, whisking well after each addition (I used about 3/4 tsp. salt and 1 1/4 tsp. vanilla).

Serve cold or warm over vanilla ice cream. The sauce will thicken as it cools. It can be refrigerated in an airtight container and reheated in a toaster oven or small saucepan.

Every week I skim some cream from our fresh milk. Most weeks I have a purpose for it…and often wish there was more! This week I didn’t have an urgent need for it. I have plenty of sour cream. I think we are even good with homemade ice cream. So I decided to make caramel sauce…something to go with our fabulous homemade ice cream 🙂

I’ve made caramel before, but it never seemed to work properly. I followed the directions, but I would cook it and cook it and cook it and never get it up to temp. So I decided to try a new recipe. I found one that looked simple on Lick My Spoon for Salted Caramel Sauce. There are good step by step directions. And you don’t have to monitor the temperature.

I gave it a go yesterday. It turned out very well. And it was quite quick and simple. I just made regular caramel, not salted. But I’m sure that would be very good too. It tastes great right after making it. As it cools it gets a lot thicker. It would be great for dipping apples when it’s cold. You simply warm it a bit to soften it to use on ice cream. Homemade caramel is a simple and delicous treat.

Caramel Sauce

When the liquid sugar hits a dark amber color, add all the butter to the pan. The mixture will foam up and thicken. Whisk until the butter has melted. Once the butter has melted, take the pan off the heat.

Add the cream to the pan (the mixture will foam up again) and continue to whisk to incorporate.

Let cool in the pan for a couple minutes, then pour into a glass jar and let cool to room temperature. Don’t worry if the sauce seems a bit too thin at first, it will thicken as it cools. Store in the refrigerator. Warm before serving to loosen it up again.

I also made a batch of lemon bars for Justin’s birthday treats. This is another recipe from my MIL. It’s a simple recipe. I’m generally not a huge fan of lemon bars, but these are good. Justin says they aren’t that sweet (not as sweet as some lemon bars). I think they are quite sweet. Just depends on your taste buds I guess 😛  Again, I subbed more natural ingredients for most of this. But I did still use the powdered sugar. These turned out well. The only issue I had was that they took way longer to bake than the recipe said. After 20 minutes the middle was still totally liquid. I ended up baking them for about 40 minutes.

Lemon Bars

1 3/4 cups flour (you can use whole wheat flour)
1 cup butter (cold)
1/2 cup powdered sugar (you could probably sub cane sugar and the crust would still taste fine)

4 eggs
2 cups cane sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice (juice of about 2 lemons)
4 Tbsp. flour (I would use AP flour for this since it is for thickening. You could also try corn starch or arrow root)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Cut butter through flour and powdered sugar (I did this in the food processor. Makes it very simple). Pat dough into a greased 9×13 pan. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

While dough is baking prepare lemon filling. Beat eggs. Add sugar, lemon juice, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well. Pour over crust. Bake for about 40 minutes (until center is set). Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Let cool before cutting.

Justin’s birthday is this week. He requested some treats to bring to work. So yesterday Rebecca and I made two batches of bars. The first is peanut butter chocolate bars. This recipe is from my MIL. I definitely wouldn’t call this a “healthy” recipe. You can sub most ingredients for natural ones. The only one I didn’t really was the powdered sugar in the frosting. I know you can make your own powdered sugar, but I didn’t. I figured it wasn’t too critical since I was giving most of them away 😛  They sure taste good. But not something to indulge in often. I forgot to take pictures until they were all cut up. And I only had my small camera handy, so not the best shot.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

1/2 cup brown cane sugar or sucanat
1/2 cup cane sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup flour (you can use whole wheat)
1 cup rolled oats

6 oz. chocolate chips
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup natural peanut butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1-3 Tbsp. milk

Cream sugars and butter. Add egg and vanilla. Beat. Stir in flour and baking soda. Add oats. Stir. Spread in a greased 9×13 pan (this is kind of tough. It will be a very thin layer. I usualy have to use my hands to do it, lightly dusted with flour). Bake at 350 for 18 min. While it is baking mix the sugar, peanut butter, vanilla and milk to make a frosting. Take bars from the oven and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Drizzle frosting on top. Swirl chip and frosting over bars (the chips should melt). Let cool.

I tried making blue moon ice cream last week. The ice cream was good…but it didn’t really taste like blue moon. I decided to try again this week. I did some more research and asked for opinions on flavor. From what I’ve read the flavor of blue moon is actually nutmeg! I never would have guessed that. I think there are some variations of the flavor. Some say it also has a lot of almond. The most surprising thing is that there is no fruit flavor. The color really fools you. For this attempt I mostly went with nutmeg. But I also added a little bit of homemade almond butter for a hint of almond flavor. And I added some blueberry puree for a little color (it didn’t really impact the flavor). Rebecca insisted it had to have some color. It’s more of a purple than blue (“blurple” :), but at least it’s natural. I’ll have to keep experimenting with homemade/natural coloring to make it more blue. This was a pretty successful attempt at homemade blue moon. It really does taste like the blue moon flavor! “Cinderella” really enjoyed it. I didn’t measure anything when I made it. I just tasted as I went along until I got the flavor I wanted. So I’ll do my best to write down a recipe. If you try it please taste the batter and adjust the flavor as needed before putting it in the ice cream maker.

You can use this same flavor idea for other things besides ice cream. I made some blue moon yogurt for Rebecca’s lunch yesterday (plain yogurt with maple syrup, a little blueberry puree and a sprinkle of nutmeg). You could even try blue moon pudding or pudding pops (add some nutmeg to homemade vanilla pudding…freeze it in molds for pops).

Now that I’ve come up with a decent homemade blue moon maybe I’ll have to really challenge myself and try to make homemade superman ice cream. Anybody know what flavors the yellow and pink ice creams are?

This post is linked to Fat Tuesday at Real Food Forager, Real Food Wednesdays and Fight Back Friday.

Blurple Moon Ice Cream

3 cups cream (preferably raw)
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup maple syrup (adjust to your taste)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. lemon juice
1-3 tsp. nutmeg (adjust to your taste)
2 Tbsp. homemade almond butter or 1/4 cup crispy almonds
1-2 Tbsp. arrowroot powder (not necessary, but it does help texture)

blueberry puree (optional for color)
1/3 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1 Tbsp. maple syrup

Cook blueberries and syrup on low heat until berries soften and release juice. Strain. Cool.

In blender or food processor (I used my Vitamix) combine all ingredients (including blueberry puree if using), making sure the almonds are totally blended. Taste. Adjust syrup, nutmeg and almond to taste. Process in ice cream maker (mine took 20 minutes in my Kitchen Aid attachment). Store in freezer.