3 Ingredient Cold Brew Coffee Ice Cream

We LOVE ice cream in the summer and remember our Mom making ice cream from scratch while we were growing up. Ice cream always tastes better when it is homemade and not from the store! 

This is by far, the EASIEST ice cream recipe we have seen and it results in creamy, delicious, rich coffee ice cream that even rivals Häagen-Dazs!

xxx Ivy & Eve

Makes about 2 pints.

Requires an ice cream maker. We use the Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker (only $69.95!)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups heavy cream

• 1 (12 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

• 1/2 cup of your favorite cold brew concentrate

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.

2. Pour 1/2 into the ice cream maker (your ice cream maker may be able to fit more. Ours only fit 1/2 of this recipe).

3. Make ice cream according to the machine. Ours took about 20 minutes to become soft-serve consistency.

4. Pour into a freezer-proof container. We use Tovolo ice cream containers.

5. Freeze completely (at least 3 hours.)

6. Repeat steps 1-5, adding the second batch to the ice cream container.

7. Take out of the freezer 10-15 minutes before serving.

8. Scoop into coffee cups, bowls, or cones with an ice cream scoop.

9. Enjoy!

Olallieberry Thyme Vodka Lemonade on Visit Cambria!

We teamed up with our besties at Visit Cambria to share a deliciously simple summer sipper: Ollalieberry Thyme Vodka Lemonade. It's Ollalieberry season in Cambria, and if you didn't know, Cambria and Ollalieberries go together like PB & J.

This simple concoction combines our love for old-fashioned lemonade and sweet summer berries all into one tasty cocktail! Olallieberries are a large juicy summer berry that's part blackberry, part red raspberry, and downright delicious! This cocktail is perfect for a lazy afternoon by the pool (or beach or backyard BBQ). It is sure to be a hit all season long!

Tip: If you can't find olallieberries, you can swap them with blackberries or even a large spoonful of ollalieberry jam!

xxx

Ivy & Eve

P.S. Be sure to check out our other Cambria adventures:

Cambria Weekend Getaway and Cambria Girls Weekend!

Lemonade Ingredients:

Makes one jug of lemonade.

• 1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (5 to 6 lemons)

• 1 cup superfine sugar (or to taste)

• 1 cup crushed ice

• 3 cups water

Directions:

Place all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. 

Cocktail Ingredients:

Makes one cocktail.

• Lemonade (see recipe above)

• 5 olallieberries

• 1.5 oz vodka

• 2 thyme sprigs

Directions:

1. Place 3 large ollalieberries in a tall glass.

2. Muddle with a wooden muddler (or a fork).

3. Add 1.5 oz (1 shot) vodka to the glass and stir.

4. Fill the glass with ice cubes.

5. Top with lemonade.

6. Take the thyme sprigs in your hands and clap your hands together to bring out the aroma.

7. Garnish with a slice of lemon, two olallieberries, and the smacked thyme.

8. Enjoy!

Summer Spiced Iced Coffee with Jittery John's

Like many people, we love coffee...maybe too much...

While we enjoy a steaming hot cup of coffee most of the year, when the summer sun starts to shine, we love to celebrate with tall glasses of iced coffee! Adding orange slices to coffee may seem odd, but it adds a delicious and slightly sweet and summery taste. To us, this recipe is pretty much summer in a glass. You can customize it with sweetener and/or creamer -  Eve likes it black with just 1/2 tsp of agave to ever so slightly sweeten, while Ivy like hers with cream or coconut milk and 1 tbsp. of agave for a real treat.

We recently found Jittery John's in our local Target and LOVE their deliciously smooth cold brew coffee range. And we also love their cute packaging! You can find JJ's at many Target locations in Northern California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana and in other retailers nationwide. Click here to find your closest retailer!

xxx Ivy & Eve

PS: Be sure to enter our Instagram Jittery John's Giveaway ending May 20th to receive $25 to Target and two free bottles of Jittery John's -ENTER HERE! (GIVEAWAY CLOSED)

Serves 1

Ingredients

• 1 flask Jittery John's Cold Brew Espresso Blend

• 1/8 tsp. cinnamon

• 2-3 orange slices

• 1/2tsp. -1 tbsp. agave syrup (or simple syrup)

• Ice

• Cream, milk, or other milk substitutes (optional)

• Cocktail shaker (or something with a lid to shake the ingredients in like a mason jar)

Directions

1. Add Jittery John's cold brew, cinnamon, orange slices, sweetener (optional), and ice into a cocktail shaker or the like. 
2. Shake away!
3. Pour into a tall glass with ice
4. Add a bit of creamer (optional)
5. Garnish with an orange slice, add a straw, sit back, sip, and relax!!!

The Perfect Cream Tea (Clotted Cream & Scone Recipe)

There are few things in this world Ivy loves more than a good cream tea. She even has a framed print on her wall (see below) that says, "I love you more than cream tea and scones"...and most days she doesn't know if that's a true statement! Can she truly love anything more than cream tea and scones?

Cream tea is really simple. Cream tea consists of clotted cream, scones, a bit of jam, and hot tea. Both the scones and the clotted cream take relatively no effort (but they do require a bit of planning). It's the perfect way to enjoy your tea-time without the expense and overindulgence of traditional afternoon tea. We really enjoy ordering cream tea when we visit England.

For quite some years, we went about life here in the U.S. without cream tea and only survived by planning our future visits to England. But times changed, and our hunger for cream tea went savage. We needed cream tea and we needed it NOW! So we decided to try and make it ourselves. Now that we have learned how to make cream tea we don't know why we went so many years without!

Clotted Cream

Ingredients:

• 1-quart heavy whipping cream (not ultrapasteurized, but it can be pasteurized)
• A low baking dish (best to be long and wide so the cream is about an 1 1/2 thick when poured in)

Directions:

Clotted cream is crazy simple. All you have to do is turn your oven to the lowest setting we set ours to 150F. Then you pour the cream into the baking dish and put it in the oven for 12 hours (we put ours in at night so in the morning we can take it out). After 12 hours remove the dish from the oven and let it cool. Cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator. We leave ours in the pan until the following morning when we plan to have our cream tea. When you are ready to serve, skim the thick creamy top off of the watery bottom (looks like skim milk) and place the clotted cream in a bowl or jar. This only keeps for a few days so eat up! Keep refrigerated. 

Vanilla Bean Scones

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 1-ounce butter, chopped
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 vanilla bean (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425F. 
2. Combine flour and sugar in a bowl. Using your fingers rub in butter until it is lightly mixed.
3.  In a separate bowl add milk and water and scrape vanilla bean seeds into the mixture. Discard the bean shell. Add milk mixture to flour mixture.
4. Using a butter knife, mix to create a soft, sticky dough. Flour surface and knead dough until smooth.
5. Roll out gently to 1 1/2 inch thick. Cut out circles with cookie cutter or the top of a plastic cup.
6. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Lightly brush milk on the tops of the scones and sprinkle with sugar. 
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until tops of scones start to turn golden.
8. Serve scones with clotted cream, jam, and a pot of tea.

Enjoy!

xxx Ivy & Eve

                              hopskipjumppaper.com 

Tasty Coconut Clusters

We have been in the mood for coconut. What better way to eat coconut than in a yummy cookie?! We found some recipes for coconut "almond joy" cookies and loved the idea of a coconut cookie that is chewy but also crunchy and packed with flavor. After looking at about 100 different recipes, we created our recipe. The main difference from those we found is that we toast our almonds for extra toasty flavor and add fancy sea salt to the "dough" and to the top of the cookies. These have already become a huge hit with our family and friends.

Warning: These are addictive.

Enjoy! 

xxx Ivy & Eve

Makes approximately 20 cookies. 

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips (or whatever kind of chocolate chips you have)
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
• 1 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 tsp sea salt (the fancier the better) plus more for sprinkling on top

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
3. Toast the sliced almonds in a small skillet until lightly golden. Let cool.  
4. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.
5. Scoop large spoonfuls onto the parchment paper.
6. Slightly pat the mounds down.
7. Sprinkle with quality sea salt.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Until the cookies are golden around the edges.
9. Let cool and enjoy!

AQUIEM: Coffee Brewed Right

We love coffee as much as the next person, and enjoy every sip of our morning cup of joe. For years, we have been using Nespresso coffee and their machines and love the simplicity of getting a great cup with little effort. Nespresso's coffee beans are great quality so when we recently discovered AQUIEM we were interested in testing it out with our machine.

AQUIEM sells boxed water to use when making coffee. Their water is purified specifically to include the minerals that enhance flavor and exclude all the bad stuff - like chlorine, zinc, copper, and acids you find in regular tap water. This water is meant to enhance coffee's taste and aroma. Hmmm... It sounded sort of ridiculous when we first read about it, how different can your coffee taste just by changing what water you use to brew it?! 

After testing AQUIEM though, we changed our minds. We decided to test it with both a drip coffee method and our Nespresso machine to see how different they tasted. We felt like we were back in high school working on our science project!

 Hypothesis: There would be no taste difference.

Method: Follow every instruction given to us by AQUIEM, while also measuring and cleaning everything precisely. Like many science projects our hypothesis was proven wrong.

Conclusion: We did taste a difference, enough to say the coffee tasted better with the AQUIEM water than when brewed with the tap water. The AQUIEM water made the coffee have less of a mineral taste and created a smoother finish.

We would definitely recommend this product to coffee connoisseurs or anyone who enjoys a perfect cup of coffee!

Happy Brewing!

xxx Ivy & Eve

Thank you AQUIEM for providing the products for this post.

Goat Cheese and Sweet Potato Wontons

These little bundles of joy are perfect for making with friends and family. They are pretty simple to make, and fun to fill. You can make the filling ahead of time and have everyone pitch in to fill the wonton wrappers. These are a perfect and tasty vegetarian appetizer and pair perfectly with a glass of bubbly or mimosas. We will surely be serving them at our next get together!

xxx Ivy & Eve

TIP: This recipe calls for what we, in the US, call sweet potatoes (which are true sweet potatoes) but in most grocery stores, they are labeled yams. Very confusing, we know. Here is an article from The Kitchn that explains it.

Makes around 30 wontons and dipping sauce.

Ingredients

• 1 large sweet potato

• 2/3 cup goat cheese

• Package of wonton wrappers

• Vegetable oil

• Salt & pepper

• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice (or fresh store bought)

• 2 tsp grated ginger

• 1 heaping tsp honey

Directions

1. Prick the sweet potato all over with a fork, and microwave on a plate for 7-10 minutes, or until soft. Set aside and let cool a bit.

2. In a small bowl, mix the fresh squeezed orange juice (we juiced our own), ginger, and honey in a small bowl. Set aside until ready to serve.

3. Scoop the cooked sweet potato into a large bowl and discard the skin. Mash until smooth.

4. Add the 1/2 of the goat cheese to the bowl, season with salt and pepper, and mix until smooth.

5. Add the other 1/2 of the goat cheese and mix lightly. You want some goat cheese chunks in the mix.

6. Fill each square wonton wrapper with 1 tsp of the mix to the center of the wrapper.

7. Lightly wet the edges of the wrapper with water (using your finger) and fold diagonally.

8. Gently squeeze the air out of the pocket and seal the edges.

9. Heat about 1 inch of vegetable oil in a pan on the stove.

10. Once hot, drop 1 filled wonton into the oil. Flip once after about 5 seconds and take the wonton out once the edges of the wrapper begin to brown. Place on a paper towel. The wonton will continue to brown after you take it out of the oil.

11. Repeat until all of the wontons are fried.

12. Serve on a large plate with the orange ginger honey dipping sauce.

13. Enjoy!