Warning: this post is totally out of season. Come back next week for a great soup recipe, because if you’re looking for a way to keep warm, this post isn’t going to help you one bit!
This year had way less ice cream in it than most years. Usually ice cream is a dependency in the summer months. I love cool weather, and I use ice cream as a survival tactic through the hot months. But not this year. The reason? Despite always reading the labels on the food we eat, I stopped to really examine my favourite flavour of vanilla ice cream. Here’s what I found:
Cream, Modified Milk Ingredients, Sugar, Glucose, Mono and Diglycerides, Locust Bean Gum, Cellulose Gum, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Dextrose, Natural Flavour.
Eeeek! Carrageenan? That’s what I had been trying to avoid in my almond milk! Sure, it wasn’t enough to really scare me off of eating this brand of ice cream, but hey, I was sure there were better options out there. Right?
Nope. Instead I found way worse options, all loaded with tartrazine, that fun yellow food dye that has been linked to hyperactivity in children.
I continued to hopelessly open freezer doors in every grocery store I went into. Maybe you saw me. I was the crazy woman reading the information on the side of every single box, carton, and tub of ice cream I could find. Last week I gave up hope. I declared to Arun that I was now turning my search into a search for the perfect ice cream maker. Then this happened:
Ingredients: Cream, Milk, Sugar, Egg Yolks, Natural Vanilla Flavour, Carob Bean Gum, Guar Gum.
Ingredients I can live with (may still end up with that ice cream maker though) and it’s “Super Premium,” which basically just means that it’s ridiculously good.
Naturally I was excited to try this ice cream out, but it felt like such an event that I decided I needed more than just ice cream. I needed magic shell! When I think of magic shell, I instantly think of DQ Dilly Bars. I haven’t had one in years, but remember often getting them as a child…it’s dangerous territory when dessert and nostalgia meet!
This magic shell is the easiest thing you’ll make all day, I promise! There are two ingredients – chocolate and coconut oil – and three steps! And if you have ever baked with melted coconut oil and done something silly like adding it into cold milk (pfff, who would do that…not me…nope, never…), you know why this shell recipe works: the coconut oil hardens as soon as it hits something cold.
I’ve always heard that you’re supposed to fight the heat by drinking hot drinks. I wonder if it works the other way around too? Let’s find out, shall we? Here’s to fighting the cold with some deliciously cold ice cream and magic shell!
Chocolate Magic Shell
(makes enough shell for 3 scoops)
Ingredients:
1/4 cup of your favourite chocolate chips
1.5 tablespoons of coconut oil
Method:
1. Put chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for about 30-40 seconds, or until chocolate has started to melt. (I take it out every 10 seconds or so to stir and help the melting along).
2. Once the chocolate is mostly melted, add the coconut oil and stir until the mixture is fully melted. If need be, microwave for another 5-10 seconds.
3. Spoon/pour onto ice cream. After about 1 minute the chocolate shell should have hardened completely. Enjoy!
What was your favourite dessert growing up?
