Christmas and New Years

This past summer I decided to try my hand at making a couple of liqueurs and had varied success with those projects, but after some time steeping, filtering, bottling, and a little more aging I ended up with two liqueurs that I bottled up and gave away as gifts this year. One was nocino and the other one I called Cherry Almond (slightly sweetened sour cherry and sour cherry pit flavored), which tasted a little too much like almond extract for my taste. Nocino showed up on a few blogs over the past year (notably Simply Recipes).

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What about the pits?

I’ve been eating cherries in several preparations lately, from the berries I made jam and cooked with some sugar to top some ice cream, but from the pits I’ve made a few batches of ice cream. I knew the flavor wouldn’t be that strong, so I wanted to avoid eggs, but I also didn’t think that an all-cream Philadelphia-style fit the bill. That’s when I settled on a cornstarch thickened spin on gelato. It took a few batches (pity) to get the recipe right, but I think this one’s a keeper. [...]

Recreating that Black Pearl Flavor

I haven’t suddenly stopped cooking, but I have been away (again) from writing on my blog. In the interim, I’ve found some new favorite recipes and a new favorite chocolate. [...]