Thursday, December 1, 2011

Fried Ice Cream

Yes, this is decadent and should be shared. This comes from our local "Critics" restaurant, a great place to eat at the Mall at Greece Ridge Center.... coincidentally where I'm bell-ringing tomorrow night???? Can you say:

WELL PLANNED, RUTHY!!!!

:)




For good fried ice cream you should soften ice cream slightly. Using a scoop, form it into balls, then freeze the balls on a cookie sheet until hard. This is best done in a low-temp freezer, so adjust your settings accordingly. And did you know food keeps much longer at 10 degrees than it does at 25 degrees?  Sometimes C-O-L-D is better!

And here's the recipe which is (trademark, of course!) Easy-Peasy:

What you need to make a half dozen or so:

  • vanilla ice cream, formed into balls and frozen hard
  • 3 cups crushed cornflakes cereal or crushed graham crackers
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 3 egg whites
  • Drizzle of honey
  • Chocolate syrup
  • Whipped Cream
And here's what you do:
  1. Scoop ice cream into 2/3 cup sized balls. Place on baking sheet and freeze until firm. This usually takes a few hours in my house where the upstairs freezers are always being opened for something or other.
  2. In a shallow dish, combine cornflakes and cinnamon. Or use the cinnamon graham crackers. Both work delectably. Or use plain graham crackers and add cinnamon. I promise, you will be so in love with the finished product and me that you won't care which you use. 
  3. Beat your egg whites until foamy. Roll ice cream balls in egg whites, then in cornflakes, covering ice cream completely. Repeat if necessary. Freeze again until firm, 3 hours. (Now, you can pause here and you're all ready to serve these for a group. They can stay in the freezer and at party tiime or dessert time you just fry and embellish. Or go ahead and make them now!)
  4. In deep fryer or large, heavy saucepan, heat oil to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
  5. Using a basket or slotted spoon, fry ice cream balls 1 or 2 at a time, for 10 to 15 seconds, until golden. Drain quickly on paper towels.
  6.  Place in bowl, ice cream dish or if you can find or make light, crispy tortilla shells, that's what they use at Critic's restaurant, so yes, on top of this decadence, you can EAT THE BOWL... They use a light tortilla shell that's bowl-shaped and dusted with cinnamon sugar. You can make tortilla shell bowls by frying large tortilla shells wrapped around a can to maintain shape. I don't do this at home. Because that sounds like work. But if you want to serve it on tortilla "leaves", those are just cut triangles of tortilla shell, deep fried until light, crisp and puffy. This is a quick step and just adds to the naughtiness of the overall dessert. As if that could possibly GET WORSE...  ;)
  7. Put ice cream ball in bowl.  Drizzle with a smidge of honey. Now drizzle more appropriately with chocolate syrup or hot fudge. Add whipped cream and a cherry if you haven't already eaten them all.
And there you have it. The most amazing dessert on the planet in your very own kitchen. You're welcome!  ;)

18 comments:

  1. Seriously? Fried ice cream?????? Why doesn't the ice cream melt? Sounds intriguing but I'm terrified of deep friers so I think this will have to be a restaurant treat for me. If I can find it anywhere around here.

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  2. Wow. I never imagined this could be made at home! I ate it years ago at Chi Chi's (are they even still around?). I loved fried ice cream!!

    Ruthy, I have a dumb question. I've never deep friend anything. How many bottles of oil would it take to fill a pot? I probably don't have enough!

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  3. sorry don't have the willpower for this - esp if I have the ice cream and syrup..sigh...it's gonna get eaten 'raw'! ya'll truly amaze me with some of this cooking LOL! yep what Kav says - restaurant treat!! :-)
    susanna

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  4. The first time I ever had deep-fried ice cream was the day I got married. We were both exhausted, had just checked into the bed & breakfast where we were spending the night and we decided to head over to the local restaurant (Win Schulers - you can still buy their cheese spread in stores in the mid-west) for a nice meal. Since I was wearing my new husband's boutonniere, the waitress asked us if we were celebrating a special occasion. She spread the news, and the manager treated us to dessert - fried ice cream. It was delicious!

    Wouldn't this be fun to make to celebrate our anniversary next July?

    BTW - Happy anniversary to Ruthy and Dave!!!

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  5. Apply one to each hip. OMG this is decadent.

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  6. I personally think it is God's little joke that Ruthy should look so svelte and own a deep fryer and know how to use one.

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  7. LOL, Tina! I'm picturing you (and me) with an ice cream scoop bulge on each hip.

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  8. Didn't you two see at the beginning of Ruthy's post that this IS MEANT TO BE SHARED?

    So we'll only have 1/2 an ice cream scoop bulge on each hip...

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  9. Ruthy's anniversary??!! I didn't know! Have a romantic, happy one, Ruthy!

    LOL, Jan! Maybe it's worth a half a school bulge. :)

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  10. Ruthy, these look amazing, but they also seem time consuming. I bet they're worth it! I won't mention the calories because I'm sure they're minimal.

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  11. Sorry, had babies today and parents in and out...

    Kav, if the ice cream is really hard, the coating protects it. It's amazing, really, and probably a good example of some great scientific principle that mere mortals cannot understand.

    Susanna, I hear ya'! I like to do things like this for a crowd because they think you're cool and I'm an attention seeker from way back. Which is why Tina and I get along so well. Think "Beaches"... I'm Bette Midler. Dagnabbit.

    HAHAHAHAHA! TO TEEENA AND THANK YOU FOR THE SVELTE COMMENT... ;) Love it because Tina knows I'm just as real as the next hippy girl...

    So, deep fryer: 2 - 3 quarts in the smaller ones and I have a big two sided one that takes five quarts. I do all my deep-frying in the garage on an old Formica table. Keeps the smell out of the house, you know?

    You can get small ones and they work fine, but I find/found that they wear out quicker. The big ones seem better made and the trick is you clean them rarely... That sounds gross, right? But do you think a restaurant dumps their fry oil every night? Of course not. So I dump mine and start fresh every two months or so....

    If you use it less often, it may be much longer than that. I just cover it and uncover it when I'm ready to use it again. No one has died.

    :)

    Yet.

    :)

    This is really an easy recipe other than making the ice cream balls. If your oil is hot (375) and the ice cream ball is hard, it's only a quick fry to crisp the coating.

    I make the balls up ahead and keep them in a freezer container so they don't get freezer-burned or taste funny. Then it's a quick trip to the fryer and drizzle.

    Nice anniversary, ladies! My friend Lisa who is fighting breast cancer got a great report from the pathologist today. The chemo totally eradicated the tumors, no lymph node involvement and only a few dead cancer cells remaining in the affected breast that they removed last week. Nothing in the other breast. Yayayaya! ... Dave and I are thrilled because we love her and her family that much. Just delighted to have happy news on this walk with her! And we went to dinner tonight, so that was a great way to end the day.

    Cara!!!! Welcome to the Cafe, darling! Um, I see margarita mix, honey... :)

    And we've been talking low-carb over here... And I've been good this week.

    But then this morning my resolve failed me and a CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFIN JUMPED OUT AND ACCOSTED ME.

    I shared it with Megan, my Goddaughter. She's 18 months old. Let me just say: I eat faster than she does.

    Sigh...

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  12. Ahhh Ruthy, it must be in the air. I came to confess that a chocolate donut (or maybe 3) jumped out at me. But it was chocolate - and had white sprinkles and it's December 1t and it looked like snow - the donut.

    Sigh
    I ate Kale with oranges and cranberries for dinner though:) Wasn't all that hungry after the donut(s).

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  13. So busy confessing I forgot to add in -

    Happy Anniversary to Ruthy and Dave!

    YEAH on the good news for Lisa.

    Apologies to Missy. When I saw the topic today I assumed it was a southern thang. You know - like deep-fried snickers bars at the state fair.

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  14. Mary, would you believe I've never tried the fried twinkies or snickers? LOL But I do like a good southern fair. :)

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  15. Yay for Lisa!!!

    I deep-sixed the low-carbs today too - our Bible study group had our Christmas dinner and I took chocolate swirl cheesecake.

    I could eat the whole thing, but I was nice and shared.

    I'll have to ignore sugar for the next six months to make up for it, though.

    But that's okay. It was that good.

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  16. Okay, we'll jump back on for the the day now... I was good at dinner last night and did double veggies instead of potatoes and I'll tell you... Fresh green beans, broccoli and carrots, cooked just crisp-tender... Half a plateful! And wonderful...

    So that made up for the fried seafood on the other half of the plate, LOL!

    Bell ringing tonight. Dressing warm.

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  17. wow I'm glad Lisa had a great report! I was wondering how she was doing - can't walk by pink without thinking about her.
    Susanna

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