vietnamese iced coffee granita sundae

Did you know that only EIGHT percent of New Year's resolutions actually get achieved? Crazy right? Remember that time I made an epic New Year's resolution to post a blog every week? Well.... I'm definitely not part of that 8%. 

So where have I been you ask? Suffering the miserable life of an undergraduate college student taking two too many classes, working one too many jobs and having the joy of commuting between two equally as dysfunctional households on different sides of one giant lake. Woe is me, lol. But it's over with. Finally!!! Somehow, I even managed to do well in school (after announcing that "everybody has a bad semester, and I'm okay that this one is mine") and even won an award for it! Oh, I went to a freezing cold New York, bleached my entire scalp, and drunk texted Molly Yeh about cheese fries in Texas in this period, too. 

Rest assured, I'm not leaving again. I've missed all of my lovely internet friends way too much and will spending the next few days cooped up in bed post-wisdom teeth surgery being paranoid about dry sockets and making the rounds visiting all of your pretty blogs. :)  Let's celebrate with some dessert! 

A few days ago, French Market Coffee sent me a giant box of coffee and challenged me to create a killer New Orleans-themed recipe. I obviously obliged, because coffee is the sole reason why I got through this semester from hell and coffee plus dessert is the greatest combination like.... ever. 

Now I know what you're thinking, Vietnamese iced coffee .... New Orleans??? Did you know that New Orleans has thriving Vietnamese population and a killer Viet restaurant scene? Did you know that my diet pretty much consists of nothing but banh mi and spring rolls? Did you know that Vietnamese is the fourth most spoken language in the entire state of Louisiana? Did you know that I just looked that up on Wikipedia? Bam. 

Because Vietnamese iced coffee is the delicious marriage of chicory coffee and condensed milk, I figured I would deconstruct it and turn it into something even more delicious than the drink itself.

The result: granita sundaes. Granitas are generally served alone or with a bit of whipped cream, but I truly believe in calorie-loading so I covered mine in layers upon layers of ice cream. Condensed milk ice cream, to be exact. On top of all of that, I covered the whole deal in even more condensed milk, because why not? 

I know this all sounds potentially stressful, but this dessert is super easy! The granita is literally just coffee and sugar, mixed, frozen, and sloshed around with a fork a few times. The ice cream is a no-churn situation, with only three ingredients and a quick freeze. You can even lie and act like you broke out that fancy Cuisinart ice cream maker that you've never used, I won't tell! Promise!

Brb, I'll be eating the leftover granita for the rest of my summer.

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Chicory Coffee Granita 

• 2 cups hot brewed French Market Coffee & Chicory chicory coffee 
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

make: 

In a medium-sized bowl, dissolve the sugar in the hot coffee. Once dissolved, stir in vanilla. Transfer the mixture into an 8-inch metal baking pan. Freeze the mixture, making sure to stir the mixture vigorously with a fork every 30 minutes until slushy, about 2 hours. 

Condensed Milk Ice Cream 

• 1 cup cold heavy whipping cream 
• 1 tsp. vanilla bean paste or extract 
• 1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk, plus extra for drizzling

make: 

Using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the cold heavy cream and vanilla on high until soft peaks form. Gradually add the condensed milk and continue whipping until high peaks form. Transfer the mixture into a bowl or loaf pan and freeze until set, at least four hours or overnight. 

When ready to serve, layer the granita and ice cream in a bowl or coffee mug. Drizzle with extra condensed milk! 

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This post is sponsored by French Market Coffee. All opinions are my own and this sundae is literally amazing so don't be fooled. 

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The Salty Pilgrim (& a virtual potluck!)

Do you ever dream up what the Big Gay Ice Cream menu would have looked like in 1621? Nope. Okay, definitely just me.

A few weeks back, Renee from Will Frolic for Food contacted me and bunch of other bloggers about participating in a huge virtual Friendsgiving potluck in collaboration with J. Q. Dickinson Salt-Works and I immediately jumped on board. I mean, wouldn't you want to have two Thanksgivings in a single week too? Sure, the first of the two may be virtual and you can't actually eat any of the food, but I'm sure that we'd all feel a little bit less guilty that way anyways. 

Given my inability to cook real people food (read: anything that isn't sugar), I hopped on the dessert train faster than Michelle Obama could turn up with a root vegetable. Then came the panic over what to make...

I'm not one for pumpkin or sweet potato pies, so the classics were out of the picture for this Thanksgiving spread. I thought to myself — and probably out loud, too — "hmmm, what type of dessert is the farthest from traditional for a Thanksgiving dinner?"

Ice cream sundaes. 

Disclaimer: If your annual Thanksgiving celebration is complete with a sundae bar, I have two questions for you: 1) who the hell are you? and 2) where is my invitation? 

It took milliseconds before I was thinking of ways to reimagine Big Gay Ice Cream's Salty Pimp for turkey day. I don't know how many pimps were roaming around Plymouth County, but my speculation is that the number was preeeeetty low, so I made the executive decision to rename this sundae the Salty Pilgrim and make it all types of first harvest inspired. 

In case you're unaware of the Salty Pimp, it's a cone of vanilla soft serve, dulce de leche, chocolate shell, and flakes of sea salt. Aside from shedding its overtly sexual nature and being much more PC, the Salty Pilgrim is composed of the following:

• Sweet Corn Ice Cream (not soft serve, but just go with the flow)
• Sweet Potato Caramel 
• Valrhona Dulcey Magic Shell (v important !!!!!!!!!!!!) 
• J. Q. Dickinson Sea Salt flakes  

and holy Jamestown, is it delicious! One bite in and my mom was doing the whole *eyes wide open, gasping for air, and kind of muttering "holy shit" under her breath* thing she does whenever I make something really freaking good. I prepped a sundae for my dad later on last night. He practically moaned, then said "you need to give this to somebody. People need to have this in their life." So there you go, a damn harvest sundae called the Salty Pilgrim is Trey Blackall approved. (and that's QUITE the feat!)

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Disclaimer: this post is part of a virtual Friendsgiving potluck with J. Q. Dickinson Salt-Works. All opinions are mine, like the fact that this salt is soooo bomb! 

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Sweet Corn Ice Cream

(adapted from this Jeni's recipe)

• 2 cups whole milk
• 4 tsp. cornstarch
• 1 ear of corn
• 1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
• 3 tablespoons cream cheese, softened

Directions

1Make the ice cream: In a bowl, stir together 1/4 cup milk and the cornstarch; set slurry aside. Cut kernels off cob of corn and cut cob into large chunks; reserve kernels and cob together. In a 4-qt. saucepan, whisk together remaining milk and the cream, sugar, syrup, and salt; add corn kernels and cob and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook for 4 minutes; stir in slurry. Return to a boil and cook, stirring, until thickened, about 2 minutes. Pour mixture through a fine strainer into a bowl and discard corn solids. 

Place cream cheese in a bowl and pour in 1/4 cup hot milk mixture; whisk until smooth. Then whisk in remaining milk mixture. Pour mixture into a plastic bag; seal, and submerge in a bowl of ice water until chilled. Pour mixture into an ice cream maker; process according to manufacturer's instructions. 

Sweet Potato Caramel

(adapted from Crazy for Crust)

• 1 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, sliced into tablespoons
• 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/3 cup sweet potato puree
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• a dash of black pepper
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• a pinch of salt 

Directions

In a heavy-bottomed sauce pan, heat the sugar over medium-low heat. Cook the sugar until it melts and turns into an amber caramel, stirring often. Add the butter and stir until combined, it will bubble up like crazy here. Add half of the heavy cream, stir to combine, and then stir in the remaining half. Add the sweet potato, spices, salt, and vanilla extract and stir until smooth. 

Pour the caramel into a jar and store at room temperature or refrigerated. 

Valrhona Dulcey Magic Shell 

• 160 grams Valrhona Dulcey, chopped
• 100 grams coconut oil 

Directions

In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave the chocolate and oil together in 30 second increments, stirring after each one, until melted. Store at room temperature.