SMS - Strawberry Rhubarb Preserves

This week's SMS recipe was chosen by Margo of Effort to Deliciousness. She chose Strawberry-Ruby Grapefruit Preserves. You can find the recipe here.

This recipe was absolutely delicious. Due to the abundant amount of rhubarb in my garden, I decided to make the Strawberry Rhubarb version of the jam, it was delicious!!! Thanks for choosing such a great recipe, Margot.

Rhubarb from garden + cinnamon sticks + whole cloves

The fruit is ready to jam

Jam on toast, yum!

Strawberry Rhubarb Turnovers

Strawberry Rhubarb Turnover sprinkled with powdered sugar

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I loved this jam. It had the perfect amount of sweetness and tartness. The color was bright and beautiful. Hubby's rating: 9 out of 10.
• I skipped the orange zest simply because I didn't have any on hand. And I used store-bought orange juice.
• Total amount of sugar used: 3/4 cup.
• Added 1 cinnamon stick and 2 whole cloves to the fruit (and fished them out later) for a little spice (it lingered quietly in the background and wasn't overwhelming).
  
• It took me 40 minutes from start to finish to make 1/4 of the recipe. Will definitely make it again.
• Check out the SMS blogroll to see how other SMS bakers "jammed" this week.
  

SMS - Whole Orange Poppy Seed Cake

This week's SMS recipe, Whole Orange Poppy Seed Cake, was chosen by Melissa of Lulu the Baker. I love citrus and I love lemon poppy seed cake. The whole orange version certainly added an interesting twist to an old favorite, so I was intrigued. Thanks Melissa, for choosing such a fun recipe :o)


To give this cake a decorative edge, I decided to bake it in my silicone Bundt pan instead of a loaf pan. And since I like poppy seeds, I decided to double the amount, and use 2 Tbsp. I baked it last night but didn't taste it until today. The orange flavor, which I love, came through very well. The crunch of the extra poppy seed was also welcomed. Unfortunately, I wasn't too fond of the texture. Although it was moist, it was too dense for my taste. Despite this little hiccup, I still had fun making the cake. Using a whole orange was a fun experiment. If you would like to try this recipe for yourself, please find the recipe here.


Final thoughts:

• Hubby and I liked it. The orange flavor was great. However, we weren't too crazy about the dense texture. Hubby's rating: 6.5 out of 10.
• For extra crunch, I doubled the amount of poppy seeds to 2 Tbsp.
• Bake the cake in a Bundt pan instead of a loaf pan to make it look pretty.
• Check out the SMS blogroll to see how other SMS bakers liked this cake.
  

SMS - Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream (sans fudge sauce)

This week's SMS recipe was chosen by Karen from Karen's Cookies Cakes & More. She chose Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream with Hot Fudge Sauce. I believe it's the only ice cream recipe in The Sweet Melissa Baking Book. I was very much looking forward to this recipe as I've never made ice cream before, although I have to admit, I'm not much of an ice cream person, which is why I cut the recipe in half. The ice cream making process seemed like a lot of fun and it was. I used my KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment for this.

Right after churning the ice cream; ready for the freezer

Because of the brown sugar in the recipe, I thought the ice cream would pair well with the honey caramel glaze we made for the Bee Stings a while back. Then I decided to make ice cream sandwiches. I still had a log of Chocolate Chip Cookie dough with Toasted Almonds in the freezer. So the idea came to add toasted almonds to the ice cream as well. And since I was going to take these sandwiches with us to a friend's house, I figured let's mix things up and make some sandwiches with Chocolate Chip cookies and some with Double Chocolate Cherry cookies.

Two scoops of Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream w/Toasted Almonds & Honey Caramel Glaze

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I loved the ice cream. Although I didn't eat much of it (not a big ice cream person), I did like it a lot. Hubby enjoyed it a lot and said "I wish you hadn't made just half the recipe". His rating: 8 out of 10. Will definitely make this again.
  
• I skipped the vanilla bean because I cut the recipe in half.
• Instead of skim milk, I used half & half (aka, light cream).
  
• I didn't follow the instructions exactly. Instead of using the double boiler method, I made the ice cream batter using the "pastry cream" method. Meaning, boil the cream mixture, combine the egg yolks and sugar and slowly add the hot cream mixture to the egg yolk mixture, to temper the egg yolks. Then return the mixture to the pan and heat until it reaches 180 degrees.
• You can find the recipe here. A big thanks to Karen for choosing this recipe. I had fun making it and even more fun sharing it with my hubby and friends.
  
• Don't forget to check out other SMS bakers to see how they liked this recipe.

Ice cream sandwich #1

Ice cream sandwich #2