Scarbrough Mark - À la mode: 120 recipes in 60 pairings: pies, tarts, cakes, crisps, and more topped with ice cream, gelato, frozen custard, and more

LA MODE

120 RECIPES
IN
60 PAIRINGS

PIES, TARTS, CAKES, CRISPS, AND MORE TOPPED WITH ICE CREAM,
GELATO, FROZEN CUSTARD, AND MORE

BRUCE WEINSTEIN & MARK SCARBROUGH

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ERIC MEDSKER

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Sixteen years ago we wrote our first ice cream book. It was a wonderful opportunity, but we didnt quit our day jobs. Then the book sold hundreds of thousands of copies on QVC, at big-box retailers, in bookstores, and even on this newfangled thing called Amazon. We soon realized what wed dreamed: we launched a food-writing career that has spun out into more than two dozen books on peanut butter, ham, goat, pressure cookers, boozy blender drinks, and moreand thats not counting the ones ghost-written for celebrities. No wonder our pants dont fit.

Weve circled back and are having another go at ice cream. Mind you, weve been making the stuff all along, even on some really great tours for National Ice Cream Month (July). You havent lived until youve stood outside in the San Diego heat with a table of sundaes and tried to make them last long enough for the host to get off the set and do a TV segment with you on the patio. Some things dont go well by design.

Weve learned other things, too. Weve got some new tricks for the steps that come before the ice cream machine. Like most Americans, weve gone nuts for frozen custard. And were into purer flavors.

But theres another reason these ice creams are simpler this time around. This book is not a collection of frozen dessert recipes. Instead, it explores sublime pairings: an ice cream, gelato, or sherbet plus the dessert it was designed to accompany. We dont have to mention Bacon Maple Walnut Pie with Malt Frozen Custard more than once, do we?

Everythings la mode! Which means everything is about balance. We think of these recipes as sets of rhymed couplets. (Sorry, one of us was an English major. He still cant help himself.) They are not only linked on the page but also constructed to complete each other. Some will seem obvious: Steamed Holiday Pudding and Frozen Hard Sauce. Others have to be experienced to be understood like Apricot Brandy Slab Pie alongside Chai Frozen Custard with a Lemon Curd Swirl.

As youll see, we may love ice cream, but its not necessarily the starting point in this book. Each pairing begins with a baked gooda pie or cake, brownies or scones, a layer cake or a jelly rolland then includes the frozen treat as its partner on the plate or in the bowl. Or maybe you couldnt wait that long and youre snarfing at the counter. We wont judge.

You end up with 120 recipes in sixty pairings. That said, the dessert and ice cream recipes are presented separately. You might want to make one without the other. You could make our Bourbon Peach Pie and buy vanilla ice cream or you could make our Cherry Cheesecake Ice Cream and enjoy it right out of the machine on a warm summer day.

These pairings are grouped into sections, based not on the ice creams, but on the desserts that are their soul mates. Although each section opener offers some baking tips and tricks for whats ahead, theres plenty of help throughout: our best pro tips as well as serving suggestions and make-ahead guidelines.

Before we get to all that, lets look at how to make frozen desserts in general. Wed like to lay down some of our time-tested tricks for the smoothest, creamiest treats around.

You love it from the first bite: that creamy richness, both sweet and cold. Its smooth, too, if sometimes with a slight chew, a good textural contrast before the frozen treat softens. There may be nuts or bits of fruit. Theyre second fiddles. The point is the feel, the melt, the slight shudderand the second bite.

Ice cream is the best afternoon treat, the perfect dessert, and the go-to late-night snack. Its the antidote to a hot day. Its also apparently the antidote to a winter storm. Come to New England. Youll find our supermarket freezers bare before a snowpocalypse.

Still, theres nothing like homemade. Sure, premium ice creams have gotten smoother and creamier over the last few decades, but you cant beat the home-churned stuff. How do you make it to capture all it promises? Lets hold that question for a minute while we discuss the current state of ice cream in these United States.

Back in the late 80s a couple of ice cream stands in Wisconsin (were looking at you, Michaels and Culvers) started cranking out a cross between ice cream and gelato, something they called frozen custard. For years, most Americans had been making custard-based ice creams in hand-cranked machines on their back porches. However, these Badger State concoctions were different: the custards were made not just with milk (as in gelato), or even with milk plus a little cream (as in the American standby), but with a heavy pour of cream. Whats more, they werent made with just a few egg yolks (again, as was sometimes the case with the American standby) but with gobs of them (as in gelato).

More cream, more egg yolks, a richer custardnaturally, the mere notion flashed across the country (probably after it took a nap). In its wake, all frozen treats, even the likes of sherbet, have undergone what we call a frozen-custard-ization; theyve become creamier, thicker, and sweeter. Even sorbet has gotten into the act. Pastry chefs now violate its no-dairy prime directive to create buttermilk or goat cheese sorbet (by which we take it that theyre still sorbets since they contain no cream, if other dairy).

Know it or not, weve all been happily frozen-custard-ized.

As you can see, ice cream and its ilk have gotten richer while the definition of whats what has gotten murkier. So before we get rolling, heres what we mean by the terms.

ICE CREAM a churned, frozen, mostly cream-based dessert without eggs. Some are not thickened (like the Italian classic