You've Got Moxie

I missed the ice cream tour this week and compensated by eating my weight in Pepe's pizza. Earlier tonight, my older daughter's Girl Scout Troop had a service trip to the Albany food pantry. My wife had to work late. That left me and my younger daughter with two hours of time to kill.....what to do?

First stop was the library where I picked up a copy of Pizza: More than 60 Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pizza. Yeah, blah blah blah another pizza book. But this one has Tony Gemignani as one of the authors. Who? Tony Freakin Gemignani, that's who. The library had the book there, just sitting on the shelves waiting for me to pick up. Can't wait to go through the book.

So after I dragged Casey to the library, she wanted to get some ice cream. No problem. Let me break out the smartphone, reread the tour summary and program the GPS. She patiently waited listening to music while I set a course for Moxie's. Unfortunately, the GPS didn't know about a road closure. A missed turn and a detour later, the 20 minute ride was closer to 30 minutes. We made it.

What to have, what to have....The world tour of vanilla caught my eye. Casey didn't really seem to care as long as rainbow sprinkles were involved. After a brief negotiation, we went with the world tour of vanilla with some sprinkles on the side.

You get six scoops of different vanilla ice cream, a scoop of Blue Moon (one of their signature ice creams) and a bottle of water. I don't know if we got charged for the sprinkles or not - this was just over 6 bucks. My winning negotiation tactic was ripped from When Harry Met Sally - if the sprinkles were on the side, she could dunk in every bite - Checkmate. The vanillas were all slightly different. I'm not sure I could single one out as the best. I thought the bright yellow one was the worst. I didn't pay that much attention to the names but they are served alphabetically so you can if you want to. We had fun sitting at the picnic table sharing our world tour. Plus, Moxie's has a mini park.
 

 

We had a great time. We had the run of the playground and laughed a lot. The trip was a blast. In comparison to the best ice creams I've ever had, Moxie's is not in the running. "The Best" titles go out to Bart's in North Hampton, MA (but I haven't been there in over 20 years so I can't vouch for it still being incredible or even in business) and this place in Deep Creek, Maryland - holy shit their vanilla was amazing. That place in Deep Creek was also the first place I ever had Birthday Cake ice cream. Sadly, I have never had another version of birthday cake ice cream that even comes close. If their Birthday Cake ice cream is a 10, I don't think I've had anything above a 4 since. Thanks google: if you find yourself in Deep Creek, go to Lakeside Creamery. As a vacation destination, Deep Creek is kind of weak and not worth the ride from Albany, but I might go back for the ice cream. Yet I digress...

Moxie's is clearly a local gem with good ice cream, extremely friendly service and a neat little play ground. I'm not sure how they handle cross contamination, but a sign offered a gluten free option. There were several other flavors that are probably unique to Moxie's that I'd like to try.  Next visit, I'm going for horchata. It's based on a beverage I've never heard of, but I want to try it. Watermelon sounded good too.

If I lived closer, I'd be a regular.

Christmas Cheesecake

The Christmas cheesecake is currently baking in the oven. I like cheesecake, but it is the desert of choice for my wife's family. I make a tradtional NEw York cheesecake with the crust being the only exception. This crust is gluten free. I make this cheesecake a few times a year. There are some variations in the crust as I try different gluten free cookies pulverized in a food processor, but the cheesecake never really changes. This time the sugar has been infused with vanilla beans and the vanilla extract was homemade. We'll see if there is a nice vanilla flavored boost in this cheesecake. Here is some cream cheese mixing. Only 7 blocks of cream cheese...the vanilla extract is in front of the mixer.


Here is a shot of the gluten free crust. The springform pan is wrapped in aluminum foil for two reasons. First, it will help keep the water bath from getting into the cheesecake. The foil also prevents steam from going over the top of the cheesecake. The walls of the roasting pan are higher than the walls of the springform pan. Without the foil barrier, the top of the cheesecake steams and gets, well, not good. Ask me how I know.


And here is the cheesecake ready to go in the oven. I'll post an update when the cheesecake is done and cooling.


UPDATE: Here is the cheesecake cooling. Doesn't look much different. It does smell better though.

My Cube Smells Better Than Yours

That was the subject of an email I recently got a work. The letter was from co-worker Mike to let me know our shipment of vanilla beans had arrived. This is my take from a $15 order of beans.


The larger pile on the left are cheaper beans from Madagascar. The smaller pile on the right arre Tahitian beans. The aroma of that many beans is pretty overwhelming. I was surprised how pungent they were through 3 layers of plastic (plastic wrap and 2 ziplock bags). So...what do I do with this many beans? The first project is extreme vanilla extract. I put about 2.5 ounces of beans in a bottle with some vodka. I'm using Lukssusowa potato vodka to keep the extract gluten free (my mother-in-law can't eat gluten). There are those out there that say the distallation process removes all the gluten and others that say they got sicking drinking allegedly gluten free vodka. Gluten free eaters seemed to agree that this brand was decent and I figured better safe than sorry. Here's the bottle ready to go into a dark spot with weekly (if I remember) shakings. There are too many beans in there to really see the beans. I should have taken a shot before I filled the bottle.


Other vanilla bean plans include ice cream and vanilla infused sugar. Anyone out there have other ideas?