About a decade ago, Ralph Lachmann spent a summer describing every tiramisu he ate as "delicate." Today, on april fool's day, I present the tiramisu popsicle, a popsicle that is certainly not delicate. It would most accurately be described as "crunchy"! It has layers of sweet mascarpone, vanilla cookies, and strong coffee. A fun and silly pop for a fun and silly day!
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My favorite item at the bakery I worked at in high school was the pie cookie. Two small, round pieces of flaky crust with whatever fruit was in season baked into the middle. They were adorable, easy to sell, and clever. This popsicle attempts to recreate that concept, while bringing in a frozen element and the necessity of whipped cream to pumpkin pie. Pumpkin Pie Popsicles
Yield: 6 pair-popsicles | Prep Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 8 hours Ingredients Vanilla ice cream (use this recipe) One sheet store-bought puff pastry 3/4 cup pumpkin puree 1/4 cup brown sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice Directions Prepare vanilla ice cream per recipe. Pour into molds and freeze until solid. Preheat oven to 350°. Roll out store bought puff pastry sheets. Using a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter, cut twelve pumpkins in puff pastry and place six onto a baking sheet. In a bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, brown sugar, one egg, and pumpkin pie spice. Spoon mixture onto six of the pumpkin rounds. In a separate bowl, mix together one egg and a bit of water. Brush edges of puff pastry pumpkins and lay remaining six rounds over the six rounds with mixture on them. Using a fork, crimp edges to hold together. Brush remaining egg wash over the top of each. Sprinkle with sugar and cut small holes in the top of each to help release steam. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven, insert popsicle sticks, and let cool. Serve warm with vanilla popsicle. In the summer of 2012, I went on a hike with two Peters. At around 11am we rallied to get on a bus and take a drive to the beginning of a trail that would take us to some swimming pools. We slapped on a thin layer of sunscreen, chugged our water glasses, and did absolutely nothing else to prepare. Quickly into our hike things went wrong. I slit my foot open because I had chosen to wear flip flops. We realized that we had brought no water and that none of us had thought to look at the bus schedule of the return bus. Refusing to let these small items get in our way, we pushed deeper into the forest, eventually coming across the spectacular cut-into-the-river swimming pools we had hoped for. As the hours got longer, we started thinking more and more about the reality that we would, eventually, need to get back to camp's luxuries (primarily bacterial disinfectant and water). When we arrived back at the bus drop-off-location we found a posted schedule letting us know that the next bus to arrive would be the following morning. Wearily, we began the long, hobbled walk back to camp with a single motivating thought in mind: pie. I have had a lot of good pie in my life, but the pie we had every night of that trip to Stehekin is unquestionably the best. Whatever berry the cooks could find would be danced into a big flaky crust and served warm to us as we sat on the main lodge's expansive porch each night. The porch looked out over wildflower fields and, beyond, forest rising into mountains. As we ate the warm pie, just-whipped cream would be passed around, still in the bowl it had been whipped in. So, one can understand our motivation as we wearily traipsed down the road to camp, singing sea shanties that we didn't know and predicting what that night's berry would be any time we got weak. We made it back in time for olallieberry pie and learned no lessons from the whole experience except that pie is delicious. I didn't make a berry pie popsicle for the project because I have so many things I want to do with berries that it felt like a more wide-reaching task to take on rhubarb. The popsicles have vanilla ice cream, pie filling, and pieces of crust on the bottom (the crust is hard to see but trust me, it is there). This popsicle was the first time where I really failed. I tried to make perfect crust rounds that would fit around the sticks. I did not cut the holes big enough and they crumbled when I attempted to place them around the popsicle sticks. Still crust though. So not too big of a fail. Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Popsicles
Yield: 4 popsicles | Prep Time: 1 hour | Total Time: 7 hours Ingredients 8 tbsp vanilla ice cream 1/4 lb rhubarb, cut into pieces 1/4 lb strawberries, hulled and cut into pieces 1/3 c sugar 1 tbsp cornstarch Lemon zest A bit of pie crust (I like this recipe) Directions Put 2 tbsp ice cream into each mold and freeze until solid. While freezing, combine rhubarb, strawberry, sugar, cornstarch, and lemon zest and place in a loaf cake pan. Roll out piece of pie crust and cut shapes that, once expanded while cooking, will fit into popsicle mold (remembering to cut out a large enough hole for the stick to go through). Bake crust and filling until crust is golden and filling is broken down and bubbly. Once filling has cooled, pour into molds. Once the filling has started to harden, add crust pieces on top. Freeze until solid. |