Brandy strawberry,strawberry jam, instant strawberry ice cream and strawberry drinks
When I was a kid,often times I stood right next to my mother and helped her preparing for meals or for snack or family member's birthday cakes. It was fun because you get to mess with hands and be creative and tell her how about this or that and even though I did not make those all by myself ,I felt like I have accomplished something. And when I ask her questions why do you do this or that, she tells me the reasons and it was good learning experience too.
In this entry, I thought I would share some of the food from childhood memories.
Pancake was one of those things that I remember making with my mother. When we made it with fruits, banana was the choice. We sliced banana and chopped smaller size and toss them into pancake butter and baked them.
This is kicked up version of pancakes with brandy strawberry.
So, how do you make "Pancake with Brandy strawberry"? Here is how.
Pancake with brandy strawberry
<Pancakes>
1. To the bowl, add 1 C of Unbleached all purpose flour,1 tbs of sugar,2tsp baking powder,1/8tsp table salt and mix well.
2. To the other bowl, add 1 C Milk, 1 egg, zest of 1 whole lemon, capful of vanilla extract, and 1 tbs of butter melted and mix well.
3. To the bowl of wet ingredients (the bowl of milk mixture), add dry ingredient mix (flour mixture) little by little and stir
** Just mix until you do not see lumps of flour in the batter but be careful not to over-mix.
4. To the skillet with medium high heat, drop 1/2 tbs of butter and let it melt and grab the paper towel with tong and wipe it around wait til the skillet get hot enough.Once hot enough, turn the heat down to medium heat.
** You can test the hotness with splashing one drop of water onto the skillet. If you hear the sizzle, it is hot enough. Turn the heat down to medium heat.
5.When skillet is hot enough, use ladle and pour pancake batter on the center of the skillet
** By using ladle, and pour the batter aiming onto the center of the skillet, always pancake will be same size
6. Wait until you see the slow bubble showing up and edge getting brown.
7. Flip it over and wait till it gets cook through.
** My mother taught me how to flip using clean small hand towel.
** She put the towel onto skillet and taught me that when you flip, you sort of push away from you by holding handle near you downward and push away and make motion like scooping up with wrist snap and try push up the hand towel in the skillet when it gets down to tip of the skillet. Then catch. Before flipping over, makes a couple of small pull and push motion helped position the hand towel. Also, you need to push the hand away with quick movement not slow.Otherwise, it won't flip or won't be able to catch.
** With hand towel, it is not like real flipping it over but it helps practicing the hand movement.
** When you flip the pancake, do not press it down
8. When pancake is done,plate them up and pour some of brandy strawberry over and enjoy!
** IF you make blueberry pancakes etc, here is what I normally do. When I buy fresh blueberry, I puree in mixer and pour onto ice cube tray. When it froze, I bag them up in freezer bag. Then, whenever I feel like making blueberry pancakes, I thaw the one ice cube and mix in into the batter.
I see a lot on TV that people make blueberry pancakes by dropping whole blueberry onto batter, but if you do so, you get blueberry's bursting flavor just when you hit the blueberry spot. I prefer to taste blueberry with every bite. So, I puree the fruits and add into batter. To the recipe above, 1 ice cubed puree blueberry works good. The recipe itself makes about 4-6 pancakes with about 5" diameter.
<Brandy strawberry>
** Before working on the pancake, make this brandy strawberry first
1. Slice strawberry to about 1/4" thickness and put them into tupperware and sprinkle white table sugar and pour splash of V.S.O.P brandy and mix well and let it sit on counter while making pancakes.
** V.S.O.P means Very special original pale and aged at least 5 years in wood.
** You can adjust sweetness by adding more sugar to the strawberry mixture, if it were too sweet, add more brandy.
Another thing my mother and I used to make a lot is strawberry jam. Here in the states, I have seen the recipes calling for pectin powder to make jam, but me and my mother never used one. You really don't need pectin to make strawberry jam. I recognized that some of the recipes says "simmer","low temperature", or recipe has no lemon juice. I am not certain but,I am guessing that if they use lemon juice or if cooking temperature were much higher,they should not need pectin powder to gel. I never had any problem not using pectin powder.
One another thing I recognized skimming through recipes you find here in the states is amount of sugar. Some of the recipes are calling for way too much sugar.
So, how do you make "Strawberry jam"? Here is how.
Strawberry jam
1. Take leaf part of 1 pound strawberry off, and if strawberry were big, cut to quarter
2. To dutch oven (I use Le creuset ), toss the strawberry and pour 14 tbs of white table sugar. If you go by weight of sugar for easy measurement, it is about 7 oz weight.
3. Stir well with wooden spoon and coat the sugar around strawberry and get the stove top on with medium high heat.
4. Stir slow and you will see that juice from strawberry coming out and sugar dissolved and eventually, it becomes like syrup consistency.
5. It will eventually boil. Stir consistently when boiling and skim off the foam that comes on top with spoon and put the foam onto small container.
** By using the small container to store skimmed foam, you save the trip to sink every time you take the foam out.
6. Liquid would start thicken and when you put the silver spoon onto the jam and place it on plate, you will see that it gel
7. To gel, it takes about 26 minutes. After you know it gel, remove from the heat, add 1tbs of lemon juice and stir and pour into jar.
8. When it gets cool down, put it in fridge and enjoy the jam. One pound of fresh strawberry yield about a little over 1 cup. Fresh strawberry jam tastes much better
** I skimmed as much foam I could but I could have skim a little bit more..
** Since I knew I would finish it off quickly, I did not do any canning steps; sterilizing jar and stuff. If you follow canning steps, it would last lot longer.
This is where it gets weird where my next idea coming from. In previous entry titled "Palette summer treats diary ;July 16th 2010 " , you read that I made frozen yogurt treats with strawberry for my stumpy little dog. That Strawberry treat smelled so sweet and wanted to make something for us human too. So, I thought, why not "Ice cream". So, I decided to make strawberry ice cream. However, I do not have ice cream maker, so I picked up vanilla ice cream from store and here is how I made instant strawberry ice cream.
So, how do you make "Instant strawberry ice cream"? Here is how
Strawberry ice cream
1. Buy a pint of vanilla ice cream
2. Place the ice cream container in big bowl and keep in fridge for about 8 hours to melt
3. Pour the melted ice cream into the bowl
4. Add about 5-7 tbs of strawberry jam and mix well and put the ice cream back in to container, and freeze
** Since you are adding stuff into ice cream, you will get more than 1 pint of finish products.You need a small container to store extra ice cream.
I think you can make all kinds of ice cream with your creativity. You probably could add melted chocolate and stir and put those back in and you get chocolate ice cream. If you add candied ginger to melted vanilla ice cream,you get ginger ice cream. If you add green tea powder, you maybe able to make green tea ice cream. If you add blueberry jam, you made blueberry ice cream...there are lots of ways to make your own ice cream. I love green tea ice cream a lot and next time when I make own ice cream, I will try and see how it comes out.
Other than 3 ways with strawberry, there are two more. It is strawberry drinks I made a lot when I was a kid.I still make those now and then.
I see you can get strawberry milk powder at grocery store but why not make your own with fresh strawberry?
<Strawberry milk>
1. Take leaf part off from strawberry and toss a couple of them onto small bowl and smash them with potato masher. Or you can puree in mixer.
2. Put smashed/pureed strawberry to mug and add sugar and pour milk and stir
<Strawberry sprite>
1. Take leaf part off from strawberry and toss a couple of them onto small bowl and smash them with potato masher.Or you can puree in mixer.
2. Put smashed/pureed strawberry to mug and add sprite and stir
Strawberry sprite is something my family made face at it when I first made when I was a kid, but I made them a lot.Try and see if you like them.
Enjoy!
In this entry, I thought I would share some of the food from childhood memories.
Pancake was one of those things that I remember making with my mother. When we made it with fruits, banana was the choice. We sliced banana and chopped smaller size and toss them into pancake butter and baked them.
This is kicked up version of pancakes with brandy strawberry.
So, how do you make "Pancake with Brandy strawberry"? Here is how.
Pancake with brandy strawberry
<Pancakes>
1. To the bowl, add 1 C of Unbleached all purpose flour,1 tbs of sugar,2tsp baking powder,1/8tsp table salt and mix well.
2. To the other bowl, add 1 C Milk, 1 egg, zest of 1 whole lemon, capful of vanilla extract, and 1 tbs of butter melted and mix well.
3. To the bowl of wet ingredients (the bowl of milk mixture), add dry ingredient mix (flour mixture) little by little and stir
** Just mix until you do not see lumps of flour in the batter but be careful not to over-mix.
4. To the skillet with medium high heat, drop 1/2 tbs of butter and let it melt and grab the paper towel with tong and wipe it around wait til the skillet get hot enough.Once hot enough, turn the heat down to medium heat.
** You can test the hotness with splashing one drop of water onto the skillet. If you hear the sizzle, it is hot enough. Turn the heat down to medium heat.
5.When skillet is hot enough, use ladle and pour pancake batter on the center of the skillet
** By using ladle, and pour the batter aiming onto the center of the skillet, always pancake will be same size
6. Wait until you see the slow bubble showing up and edge getting brown.
7. Flip it over and wait till it gets cook through.
** My mother taught me how to flip using clean small hand towel.
** She put the towel onto skillet and taught me that when you flip, you sort of push away from you by holding handle near you downward and push away and make motion like scooping up with wrist snap and try push up the hand towel in the skillet when it gets down to tip of the skillet. Then catch. Before flipping over, makes a couple of small pull and push motion helped position the hand towel. Also, you need to push the hand away with quick movement not slow.Otherwise, it won't flip or won't be able to catch.
** With hand towel, it is not like real flipping it over but it helps practicing the hand movement.
** When you flip the pancake, do not press it down
8. When pancake is done,plate them up and pour some of brandy strawberry over and enjoy!
** IF you make blueberry pancakes etc, here is what I normally do. When I buy fresh blueberry, I puree in mixer and pour onto ice cube tray. When it froze, I bag them up in freezer bag. Then, whenever I feel like making blueberry pancakes, I thaw the one ice cube and mix in into the batter.
I see a lot on TV that people make blueberry pancakes by dropping whole blueberry onto batter, but if you do so, you get blueberry's bursting flavor just when you hit the blueberry spot. I prefer to taste blueberry with every bite. So, I puree the fruits and add into batter. To the recipe above, 1 ice cubed puree blueberry works good. The recipe itself makes about 4-6 pancakes with about 5" diameter.
<Brandy strawberry>
** Before working on the pancake, make this brandy strawberry first
1. Slice strawberry to about 1/4" thickness and put them into tupperware and sprinkle white table sugar and pour splash of V.S.O.P brandy and mix well and let it sit on counter while making pancakes.
** V.S.O.P means Very special original pale and aged at least 5 years in wood.
** You can adjust sweetness by adding more sugar to the strawberry mixture, if it were too sweet, add more brandy.
Another thing my mother and I used to make a lot is strawberry jam. Here in the states, I have seen the recipes calling for pectin powder to make jam, but me and my mother never used one. You really don't need pectin to make strawberry jam. I recognized that some of the recipes says "simmer","low temperature", or recipe has no lemon juice. I am not certain but,I am guessing that if they use lemon juice or if cooking temperature were much higher,they should not need pectin powder to gel. I never had any problem not using pectin powder.
One another thing I recognized skimming through recipes you find here in the states is amount of sugar. Some of the recipes are calling for way too much sugar.
So, how do you make "Strawberry jam"? Here is how.
Strawberry jam
1. Take leaf part of 1 pound strawberry off, and if strawberry were big, cut to quarter
2. To dutch oven (I use Le creuset ), toss the strawberry and pour 14 tbs of white table sugar. If you go by weight of sugar for easy measurement, it is about 7 oz weight.
3. Stir well with wooden spoon and coat the sugar around strawberry and get the stove top on with medium high heat.
4. Stir slow and you will see that juice from strawberry coming out and sugar dissolved and eventually, it becomes like syrup consistency.
5. It will eventually boil. Stir consistently when boiling and skim off the foam that comes on top with spoon and put the foam onto small container.
** By using the small container to store skimmed foam, you save the trip to sink every time you take the foam out.
6. Liquid would start thicken and when you put the silver spoon onto the jam and place it on plate, you will see that it gel
7. To gel, it takes about 26 minutes. After you know it gel, remove from the heat, add 1tbs of lemon juice and stir and pour into jar.
8. When it gets cool down, put it in fridge and enjoy the jam. One pound of fresh strawberry yield about a little over 1 cup. Fresh strawberry jam tastes much better
** I skimmed as much foam I could but I could have skim a little bit more..
** Since I knew I would finish it off quickly, I did not do any canning steps; sterilizing jar and stuff. If you follow canning steps, it would last lot longer.
This is where it gets weird where my next idea coming from. In previous entry titled "Palette summer treats diary ;July 16th 2010 " , you read that I made frozen yogurt treats with strawberry for my stumpy little dog. That Strawberry treat smelled so sweet and wanted to make something for us human too. So, I thought, why not "Ice cream". So, I decided to make strawberry ice cream. However, I do not have ice cream maker, so I picked up vanilla ice cream from store and here is how I made instant strawberry ice cream.
So, how do you make "Instant strawberry ice cream"? Here is how
Strawberry ice cream
1. Buy a pint of vanilla ice cream
2. Place the ice cream container in big bowl and keep in fridge for about 8 hours to melt
3. Pour the melted ice cream into the bowl
4. Add about 5-7 tbs of strawberry jam and mix well and put the ice cream back in to container, and freeze
** Since you are adding stuff into ice cream, you will get more than 1 pint of finish products.You need a small container to store extra ice cream.
I think you can make all kinds of ice cream with your creativity. You probably could add melted chocolate and stir and put those back in and you get chocolate ice cream. If you add candied ginger to melted vanilla ice cream,you get ginger ice cream. If you add green tea powder, you maybe able to make green tea ice cream. If you add blueberry jam, you made blueberry ice cream...there are lots of ways to make your own ice cream. I love green tea ice cream a lot and next time when I make own ice cream, I will try and see how it comes out.
Other than 3 ways with strawberry, there are two more. It is strawberry drinks I made a lot when I was a kid.I still make those now and then.
I see you can get strawberry milk powder at grocery store but why not make your own with fresh strawberry?
<Strawberry milk>
1. Take leaf part off from strawberry and toss a couple of them onto small bowl and smash them with potato masher. Or you can puree in mixer.
2. Put smashed/pureed strawberry to mug and add sugar and pour milk and stir
<Strawberry sprite>
1. Take leaf part off from strawberry and toss a couple of them onto small bowl and smash them with potato masher.Or you can puree in mixer.
2. Put smashed/pureed strawberry to mug and add sprite and stir
Strawberry sprite is something my family made face at it when I first made when I was a kid, but I made them a lot.Try and see if you like them.
Enjoy!
Posted by yassy at 8/15/2010 11:53 AM 
Categories: Miscellaneous (cooking)
Tags: ice cream pancakes jam desert strawberry drinks food
Categories: Miscellaneous (cooking)
Tags: ice cream pancakes jam desert strawberry drinks food
These are sound really yummy, easy to make and better for you because you can control the sugar amounts and the fruit it fresh! I'll have to try them all! Thanks again for great cooking ideas and recipes!
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After making strawberry jam and instant strawberry ice cream,I made triple berry jam also; raspberry,strawberry,and blackberry. For that, I added lemon zest and orange liquor and hmm.. it was real real good. Only problem was that jam came out with more seed from fruits than I want in Jam. Still,it was yummy. Later,I will write on it
If you know the proper canning method, then, fresh made Jam maybe nice Holiday gift.
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