{"id":2009,"date":"2011-12-15T20:32:36","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T02:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=2009"},"modified":"2011-12-16T20:33:08","modified_gmt":"2011-12-17T02:33:08","slug":"revisions-of-sugarplums-gingerbread-ice-cream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=2009","title":{"rendered":"Revisions of Sugarplums: Gingerbread Ice Cream"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D2009&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><div id=\"attachment_2010\" style=\"width: 461px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?attachment_id=2010\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2010\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2010\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2010   \" title=\"Gingerbread man\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Gingerbread-man.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"451\" height=\"473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Gingerbread-man.jpg 621w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Gingerbread-man-95x100.jpg 95w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Gingerbread-man-286x300.jpg 286w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 451px) 100vw, 451px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2010\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bite This<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In my day, Christmas never had anything to do with gingerbread.<\/p>\n<p>Gingerbread was the stuff of fairy tales and children\u2019s poems. It was the raw material that witch\u2019s houses were made of. It was the sugary drywall and roofing shingles that lured woebegone children away from their parents and into the stomach\u2019s of crones.<\/p>\n<p>Ho, ho, ho, indeed.<\/p>\n<p>In cookie form, gingerbread took shape as the baked equivalent of a juvenile delinquent. After the baker took his <em>gingerbread man <\/em>out of the oven, the imp came to life and sprinted away from his heartbroken creator, sneering all the way. Then to add insult to injury, he flung this cruel taunt behind him. \u201cRun, run, as fast as you can, but you can\u2019t catch me. I\u2019m the gingerbread man.\u201d \u00a0Happily, the molasses-flavored rug rat quickly got his comeuppance when he asked a fox to help him get over a rushing stream. Half-way across, the fox tossed the sweet little monster into the air and ate him whole.<\/p>\n<p>That, for me, was what gingerbread was all about. Not sleigh bells or holly or mistletoe.<\/p>\n<p>But now, everything has changed.<\/p>\n<p>Now gingerbread is the stuff of childish play and wintertime crafts sent from Grammy. It\u2019s the seasonal coffee flavor Starbucks whips out once a year to jack up holiday sales. It\u2019s become a saccharine shell of what it used to be.<\/p>\n<p>In a word, gingerbread\u2019s become \u2018Disney-fied.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Just like Tinkerbell, J.M.Barrie\u2019s wonderful character from Peter Pan, gingerbread has lost all of its Grimm and become nothing more than an empty sales pitch that gets constantly revised to match the limited imagination of whoever\u2019s buying.<\/p>\n<p>Works for me.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, this is all just my Andy-Rooney-esque way of introducing the third installment of the soup blog\u2019s <em>Ice Creams of Christmas<\/em>\u2014Gingerbread.<\/p>\n<p>Like the late Rooney, it goes through plenty of grumbling, but it\u2019s ultimately (after about 30 years) sweet. Yet the sweetness of the ice cream, the cookie and the \u201960 Minutes\u2019 commentator is of a much more unrefined nature than it is with most contemporary treats. It\u2019s the heavy, almost acrid sweetness of molasses. \u00a0There is refined sugar as well, but this old-time sweetener overwhelms the more sanctified, mainstream white sugar taste.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s as if the sterility of modern childhood (and I\u2019m talking way pre-teen, here), were being beaten back by childhood\u2019s true nature. Perhaps it will always be that way, so long as, in Barrie\u2019s words, \u201cchildren are gay and innocent and heartless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The gingerbread ice cream was a huge hit in our house, with children and parents alike. So bring on the revisions of Christmas tradition and whatever abominations the market will bear.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve got my ice cream maker and my family. So I\u2019ll be just fine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gingerbread Ice Cream<br \/>\n<\/strong>(about 1\u00bd quarts)<br \/>\n1 \u00bd cup milk<br \/>\n\u00be cup sugar<br \/>\n2 T flour<br \/>\nA few grains salt<br \/>\n2 eggs or 3 yolks (pasteurized, if possible, see note)<br \/>\n1 \u00bd cup cream<br \/>\n\u00bc t ground ginger<br \/>\n1 T molasses<br \/>\n\u00bc brown sugar<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Heat milk to 180-190\u00baF with sugar, flour and salt, stirring until thick, cover for 10 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Beat eggs and add \u00bd cup of mixture while beating, then add eggs to mixture.<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nHEALTH NOTE:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Since you\u2019re dealing with eggs here, you need to take care when cooking the custard. Too much cooking and the custard gets lumpy, too little and you risk salmonella.\u00a0 Another alternative is to use pasteurized egg.<\/li>\n<li>Heat the mixture for one minute over medium heat, then cool with plastic wrap or wax paper pressed onto the top of the mixture to keep it from developing a skin. Cool for several hours or overnight.<\/li>\n<li>Blend the cream, ginger, molasses and brown sugar cream into the custard with an immersion blender, then freeze the mixture in an ice cream freezer for about 35 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Put the now frozen ice cream into the freezer for a couple of hours to give it a chance to firm up.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nNOTE: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>When freezing ice cream, you need to use an ice cream freezer to ensure that a certain amount of air is mixed into the frozen cream. This gives it a lighter, less icy consistency. When freezing sorbet, you may also freeze it in a popsicle mold, a bowl or on a sheet pan. Be sure to stir the mixture occasionally to limit the size of the ice particles. Larger chunks of ice make for granita, miniscule chunks make for a nice smooth sorbet (an ice cream freezer is ideal).<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo Credit: <\/em>\u201cGingerbread Man Meets Fox,\u201d found in an old Golden Book from my childhood<em>.<\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Okay, now I am officially out of Christmas ice cream ideas. Help! Give me some inspiration in the comment section of this blog. Thanks.<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my day, Christmas never had anything to do with gingerbread. Gingerbread was the stuff of fairy tales and children\u2019s poems. It was the raw material that witch\u2019s houses were made of. It was the sugary drywall and roofing shingles that lured woebegone children away from their parents and into the stomach\u2019s of crones. Ho, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,48,26,134],"tags":[155],"class_list":["post-2009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brown-sugar","category-dairy","category-ginger","category-ice-cream","tag-molasses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2009"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2023,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009\/revisions\/2023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}