I am the Kat that Walks By Itself

I've been delaying pulverizing the already-frozen tubs because the weather here has taken a turn for the wintry. And the thought of eating ice cream while my toes are cold is not really appealing. But I have made up some more ice-cream bases anyway.

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So now there are currently five tubs in the freezer, which is the maximum I have. So I shall have to try some ice cream before I make up any more bases. But not when it is so cold! Look, it is currently 13C, in December, which might be warm for some of you, but it happens to be summertime over here! Is is the equivalent, for you Americans out there, for it to be 55F in July. In San Francisco.

As has been the case with all the Ninja Creami results, the texture has been perfect. I had to do the re-spin in order to change the texture from crumbly to creamy, but that's fine. It had a good strong coffee flavour, but too bitter for my taste. Others would like it, I expect. Also, a bit too tangy, I probably shouldn't have added the citric acid, or at least, not as much. Still, I'm currently smothering it with Maple Syrup, and that's nice. However, I don't think I'll do "coffee sorbet" again. I should have realised it wouldn't be my thing; it's really more for people who like their coffee black, whereas with me, I'm a "would you like some coffee with your milk" person. So if I do coffee ice cream again, it will be with a truckload of dairy in it. After all, James Hoffmann's recipe was born of his frustration that standard dairy-based coffee ice cream is more like a cafe latte than a straight black coffee.

But I'm still glad I did it, after all, I did learn something, and not just that I prefer my coffee ice cream to be milky.

For one thing, oh halelujah, it has demonstrated that, unlike with traditional churning, the Ninja Creami can make ice cream from a drink without having to do things like add inulin to it in order to give it a creamy texture. Just a bit of guar gum and erythritol is enough to make it feasible. Note that the instructions for the Ninja Creami explicitly state that one should NOT try to process ice cubes or a solid block of ice. So one can't just chuck any old drink in a tub and expect it to work; one will need to add something to the mixture to lower its freezing temperature, whether that be sugar, fat/oil, alcohol or a sugar-alcohol.

But still, this adds a host of possibilities! Just think of chai ice cream! Or orange sorbet made from orange juice! Or apricot sorbet made from apricot nectar! Oh I like those ideas, yes indeed.

I have ordered myself a Ninja Creami ice cream maker, which uses a completely different approach to ice-cream making than the traditional one of churning-while-freezing. Instead, it creates the tiny ice-crystals characteristic of ice cream by taking a tub of completely frozen solid "ice-cream base" and pulverizing it into submission. This James Hoffmann video is what put me on to its existence. There seems to be disagreement amongst reviewers as to whether the texture is better or worse than traditionally made ice-cream, due to the fact that traditionally made ice cream has more air in it. And it may be that ice-cream made with it doesn't retain its creaminess when frozen and eaten the next day, but that's something which remains to be seen -- I suspect that the reviewers ate all their ice-cream immediately...

You have to prepare the ice-cream base the day before, put it in one of their special tubs, and freeze it solid, before one can use it. Which is a drawback for the impatient, but it isn't as bad as the cheap ice-cream makers where you have to freeze part of the machine itself beforehand, and thus can only make one batch every 24 hours. That is why I bought, a long time ago, an expensive ice-cream maker, which has a built-in freezer, which means one can make ice cream as quickly as one can clean out the machine for a new batch. At least with the Ninja Creami, while one does need special tubs (so that they lock into the machine correctly) one can at least prepare more than one tub at once. The machine comes with three tubs, and one can order extra tubs as well.

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I definitely have more ideas for things I want to try, James Hoffmann's coffee ice-cream being one of them. Or perhaps a mocha version. And my simple vanilla frozen yoghurt recipe, which mainly consists of my favourite brand of vanilla yoghurt. I'm also pondering peas with fresh mint. And honey carrots. After all, if one can make carrot cake, why not carrot ice cream?

So, on being informed by Coles that there were no Jam Bunlets, I thought, "Okay, so how can I make a faux Jam Bunlet with what I have?"

• White bread: check.
• Jam: check.
• Light dusting of cinnamon baked in: no.

Yes, I could just spread jam on bread and then sprinkle cinnamon (or cinnamon sugar) on it, but I'm not likely to get it sprinkled evenly. (And adding more sugar to jam, no.)

Then I considered my encounters with psyllium husk powder (which is basically what is in plain Metamucil, only they add sugar too). I was adding it to all sorts of things with mixed results. So, time for another experiment.

Ingredients:

• 1 level tablespoon of psyllium husk powder (or plain Metamucil)
• 1 level tablespoon of cinnamon powder
• 1-3 tablespoons of water

Method:

1. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly in a tiny bowl or a teacup (because we are dealing with small amounts here).
2. Add ONE tablespoon of water. Mix. The mixture should start clumping together.
3. Add ONE tablespoon of water. Mix. The mixture should form a stiff paste.
4. This is where it gets tricky; add more water to thin down the paste to make it more spreadable. But if you add too much water you will get Cinnamon SLIME. Because that's what psyllium husks turn into when there's enough water. (Then again, cinnamon slime may be exactly what you are looking for.)

Then spread the mixture on bread -- or eat it straight out of the cup if you like.

So what did it taste like? Well, like cinnamon. But not as if one was just eating a mouthful of cinnamon; the psyllium husk cut the taste so that it was pleasantly cinnamon, not burn-your-mouth cinnamon. But I think I didn't mix them thoroughly enough, because the strength of the cinnamon taste wasn't evenly distributed; sometimes it was a bit hot, sometimes it was a bit bland. But mostly good.

I do not recommend eating more than one serve of this, because too much fibre all at once (remember - Metamucil) may make your digestive system unhappy, and cause you to sit on the porcelain throne for a while.

I came back from the doctor's appointment after eleven, turned on the heater, and the temperature inside according to its thermostat, was 10C. Which is COLD for an Aussie. And though I pottered around and had lunch after that, I was still hankering for a warm and filling drink, something which wasn't cocoa or tea or soup or coffee. So I made a warmshake (which is a hot/warm milkshake).

Bananaloaf Warmshake

(no actual banana-loaves were harmed in this experiment)

Ingredients:

• 100ml quick-oats
• 300ml milk
• 1-2 bananas (depending on size of bananas - I used 2 small ones)
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 whole cloves (because I didn't have any ground cloves; if you have ground cloves, add a pinch)
• sweetener to taste (optional -- depends on how ripe your bananas are)

Instructions:

1. Put the oats and the milk in a microwave-safe container and cook in microwave for 3-4 minutes, or until it just starts to boil over (that is, it hasn't boiled over yet, but it is nearly there). This isn't my carelessness, this is the test I use for cooking porridge, and since this is a super-milky porridge, I figured that would do.
2. Put the banana and the milk mixture and the spices into a tall milkshake-sized container and puree with a stick blender (or put into a conventional blender and puree with that)
3. Taste-test, and add sweetener if desired.
4. Drink and enjoy!

I call it a "bananaloaf" warmshake because the oats make it loaf-like, more filling, and probably better for you.