TWD & Flavor of the Month: Two for the Price of One

Since this week's TWD assignment was an ice cream recipe AND happened to fall at the same time as this month's Flavor of the Month installment, I decided to combine them and give you two for the price of one. Oh, who am I kidding! I did it to save myself the time and trouble of writing a separate post for each. It's Summertime, people! Who wants to be chained to the kitchen when the sun is shining brightly in a sky that's bluer than blue? Besides, there just wasn't room or one more quart of ice cream in my freezer. So, today you're getting a SGCC 2-for-1 special. And, it is pretty special. Today, we're all about Dorie's Honey Peach Ice Cream selected by Tommi from Brown Interior.

Living in Florida, it can be hard to tell when Spring rolls into Summer without looking at the calendar. One sure sign for me is the arrival of stone fruits in the markets, especially peaches. Around this time of year, peaches are everywhere, from the farmer's markets to the grocery stores to the roadside stands that dot the sides of our streets. These ripe, juicy orbs of sweetness just beg to be dressed up as cobblers, compotes, crisps and of course, ice cream. I was only too happy to oblige!

Dorie's recipe calls for fresh peaches to be cooked down in a honey bath. I decided to roast my peaches with a honey shower instead. I really love the extra sweetness and caramelization that roasting the fruit imparts. To roast the peaches, cut them in half and remove the pits. Place them face down on a baking sheet and sprinkle them with sugar or drizzle them with honey. Then, bake them for about 30 minutes in a 400 degree F. oven until soft and gooey. An added bonus is that the skins just peel right off.

For this ice cream, I used a wild lavender honey that I happened to have on hand. I also decided not to add the peach chunks to my ice cream, because I really don't like icy chunks of anything in my ice cream. Another change I made was to add a couple of tablespoons of peach liqueur to my ice cream base. This not only adds extra flavor, but it also helps to prevent the ice cream from getting too hard in the freezer. Immediate scoopability is very important when it comes to ice cream. When you've got something like this scrumptious Honey Peach Ice Cream waiting in your freezer, who wants to wait for it to get soft? It's called instant gratification, baby!

I toyed with adding a raspberry swirl to this ice cream, but Mini SGCC nixed that idea! She said it would overpower the delicate honey-peach flavor. She was right. I did, however, use some of the ice cream to make some grown-up Honey Peach Ice Cream Floats. For this, I poured some champagne and peach liqueur into glasses and "floated" a scoop of the ice cream on top of each. They made a refreshing, summery, cocktail treat!

If you'd like to make this creamy and delicious ice cream for yourself, you can find the recipe on Tommi's site. And, as always, you can check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see what the rest of the TWD gang did with this recipe.