Christ is born!

[kerravonsen]

Well, to be precise, he was born, and we are celebrating the annual reminder of his birth. I do not say "anniversary", since Christ's "birthday" is as about as accurate as the Queen's Birthday in denoting when said person was actually born. Because, let's face it, the shepherds would not be in the fields at night when it was winter time. So Jesus was probably born in April or something like that.

Doubly confusing, of course, is being in the Southern Hemisphere when this hybrid festival was conceived of as a winter-solstice sort of thing, though why it isn't on the actual solstice I can only surmise occurred through calendar drift or the like.

The forecast top for today is 31C. But there is Christmas Pudding Ice Cream in my freezer. Which will be eaten instead of brandy-blazing Christmas Pudding. There's brandy in the ice cream, anyway. I'm very proud of my Christmas Pudding Ice Cream, since I invented the recipe. It really does taste like Christmas Pudding in ice cream form. 8-)

Comments

[cheyinka]

For the record (because this gets to me), it wasn't a winter solstice festival, which is why it isn't on the solstice! In Jewish thinking of the time, prophets were thought to typically die either on the day they were born or the day of their conception. The day of Jesus's death was (more or less) known; there were Very Serious Arguments about whether to celebrate his birth on the same day or not. "Or not" won, so we celebrate his birth nine months before Easter. "Or not" won to such an extreme degree, in fact, that in the Latin-rite Catholic Church if the feast of the Annunciation would coincide with Easter, the feast of the Annunciation gets moved to avoid that. (In the Eastern rites and in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, it doesn't get moved, and the prayers just get changed a bit.)

[kerravonsen]

Thank you! That was stuff I didn't know. Cool.

[cheyinka]

You're welcome! Merry Christmas :)

[jhall1]

That's interesting. But there seems to be a snag: Christmas Day is approximately three months before Easter, not nine.

[kerravonsen]

Um... but it's nine months after Easter.
(???)

[cheyinka]

Yeah, "after" is the word I meant. Totally didn't notice I'd made that mistake - thanks for spotting it!

[kalypso]

Happy Christmas!

[vilakins]

I didn't know that either, that Christmas is nine months after Easter. I thought it was then because of Saturnalia and the solstice etc. Not that matching up a lunar calendar (which the Jewish one is) with the Julian would have the same results from year to year.

Anyway, a very happy Christmas to you, and your pudding ice cream sounds wonderful! Do you mash up actual pudding into soft ice cream and refreeze, or did you develop the recipe from scratch? I suspect the latter. :-)

[kerravonsen]

Do you mash up actual pudding into soft ice cream and refreeze, or did you develop the recipe from scratch? I suspect the latter. :-)

You suspect right. Not from scratch, though. I adopted bits from different recipes (though I can't remember where I found the originals). Here is my actual recipe.

This year's didn't have quite the right ratio of alcohol to the rest of the ingredients; it didn't freeze enough. Still tasted good, though.

[vilakins]

Yum! I'm planning to get a food processor as so many recipes use one, though I haven't figured out storage.

BTW have you considered rice malt syrup for your sweetener (though you use the dried fruit for that in this case)? I just found out about it; there's no fructose and it can easily be substituted for sugar so I'm going to check out Huckleberry Farms for it.

[kerravonsen]

Yum! I'm planning to get a food processor as so many recipes use one, though I haven't figured out storage.

I suggest a stick-blender or Bamix rather than a food-processor. Firstly, it takes up less space; secondly, it is much easier to clean; and thirdly, it is more versatile, since one can do things like puree soup without having to remove it from the pot, or make smoothies in the container you're going to drink it from, etc.

Mind you, in regard to smoothies... I broke at least two stick-blenders on frozen fruit (the best smoothies are made from chopped up fruit which one then puts in the freezer and takes out later after they are frozen). So I finally ended up getting an actual Bamix stick-blender, even though it was expensive, because it was more robust. And I've had the same Bamix for years and years now. So that was worth it in the end.

BTW have you considered rice malt syrup for your sweetener (though you use the dried fruit for that in this case)? I just found out about it; there's no fructose and it can easily be substituted for sugar so I'm going to check out Huckleberry Farms for it.

I played around with rice malt syrup a few years ago, just because I was curious, not actually because it was supposed to be more healthy.
I'm not sure that it's relevant to this, though, because (a) Christmas Pudding Ice Cream isn't meant to be healthy (I mean, it's got alcohol in it!), and (b) because I use sugar-substitutes which are extremely low-calorie, not because I'm trying to avoid fructose or have more complex carbohydrates, but just because it is a relatively easy way to reduce my calorie intake. I mean, it's completely hopeless for me to actually lose weight, but at least I have minor ways that do succeed in reducing the rate of my weight increase.

[vilakins]

I have a stick blender, but I doubt it could mix up dough like a food processor. I mainly want one to cut the work out of making some of the healthy recipes I've been researching.

I broke an ordinary blender a while back with chickpeas I hadn't soaked enough. Since then I've bought tinned.

True, and hey, I'm eating stuff I shouldn't be because I'm on holiday, but I remember your experimenting with different sweeteners in the past and wondered if you'd tried that since it's meant to be syrupy and therefore might be helpful for texture. But I've never made ice cream unless you count softening vanilla and adding ingredients then refreezing.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

That sound amazing! Mmmm.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

It is a pity you can't send the ice-cream over the internet, that sounds scrummy. I've had Brandy Butter flavoured Icecream before and that was quite nice with Christmas pud - cooled it down beautifully.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I wish we had a shop in our village selling your ice cream. :)

Merry Christmas.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Mmm, again,your invetions are superb!
And Happy Holidays to you!