Her rich, silky-smooth ice cream brings smiles

Everyone handles stress differently. Some let it overtake them, while others control it. Everyday Chef Edie Weiss churns hers into mounds and mounds of glossy rich, silky smooth ice cream.

Weiss, a CPA, keeps her ice cream maker on the counter and frequently whips ingredients into submission. The measuring, the stirring and the whirring make her worries disappear as each therapy session produces a delicious outcome.

She has developed sorbets for the lactose-intolerant, a sweet potato ice cream to replace the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie for a gluten-sensitive daughter, and a green tea with fortune cookie flavor to satisfy the taste buds of Chinese-food-loving friends.

Weiss' travels provide further inspiration and new ingredients, such as exotic spices or jars of indigenous honey. She restocks her pantry locally with expeditions to Trader Joe's, World Market and numerous specialty ethnic stores.

To complement the richness of the ice cream, Weiss likes to offer crunchy meringue cookies. They are lactose-, fat- and gluten- free, and use the egg whites that are not needed for the ice cream.

A particularly busy tax season fueled a recent ice cream and cookie soiree in Weiss' kitchen. The room was buzzing as busy professionals sampled flavors old and new, made sundaes, dunked, drizzled, and soon... all smiled.

The Honey Lavender was a hit.

"First you smell the lavender and then you taste the honey" said Karen Jaffe, a neighbor who was volunteering in the kitchen.

"Listen. There's a happy hum all over the room," said Gale Levine Higgs, a guest. "A little bit of fat and oral gratification and everyone is less stressed."

Weiss sent the group home with leftovers.

"They will keep a couple of weeks in the freezer, but never last that long" she joked.

Weiss said ice cream is great to take to parties, makes an excellent hostess gift or a tasty bribe.

"I once asked a prominent and very busy tax attorney to drive over 100 miles for a speaking engagement. He agreed, on one condition: That the payment include a container of my chocolate ice cream and a s-l-o-w-l-y delivered verbal description of all the sinful ingredients it contained."

RECIPES

Chocolate Bribe Ice Cream
2 cups heavy whipping cream
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa or 3 tablespoons dark cocoa (I use Trader's Joe's unsweetened and Ghirardelli for dark chocolate.)
6 ounces Belgium dark chocolate (with 72 percent cocoa), chopped
1 cup 1 percent low-fat milk
3/4 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
3/4 teaspoon vanilla

In heavy saucepan, warm 1 cup of cream and unsweetened cocoa, whisking constantly until it boils. Remove from heat, and whisk in chopped chocolate until smooth. Add another cup of cream and mix well. Pour through strainer into a large bowl.
Warm milk and sugar in the same saucepan; no need to wash it out. Add and mix yolks into bowl. Whisk in warm-cream mixture, then return this mixture to the saucepan.
Heat the mixture over low-to-medium heat while stirring with spatula, until it lightly coats the spatula, about 2 to 3 minutes. Don't overcook.
Pour cream mixture through a strainer into the bowl with the chocolate mixture to remove any egg solids, and stir until smooth. Add vanilla and stir again. Cool the bowl over ice bath in fridge for at least two hours and then transfer to ice cream maker.
It will take the machine about 25 to 30 minutes, and the ice cream will come out of the machine in a soft, custard consistency.

Honey Lavender Ice Cream
5/8 cup light, blossom honey
4 tablespoons dried lavender
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup low-fat milk
1/4 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
Pour 1/2 cup of honey into a small glass bowl and warm it in microwave for about 30 seconds.
Mix in half of the dried lavender, and let it sit half an hour.
Pour two cups of cream into a large bowl, strain the flowers out of the honey and add to mixture another 1/8 cup of honey. Stir.
Warm milk with sugar, whisking mixture into beaten egg yolks and pour back into sauce pan. Mix until spatula starts getting coated, and then pour the liquid through a strainer into honey-cream mixture. Whisk together the rest of the lavender packet into mixture.
Set the bowl in ice bath in fridge for 3 to 4 hours. Right before you add the mixture to the machine, strain out the lavender flowers.
Mix in the machine about 35 minutes.

Pear Sherry Ginger Cardamom Sorbet
Five pounds ripe pears (9 to 10) mixing Anjou, red bartlett and bartlett
11/4 cups water
1 cup cream sherry
1/4 cup brown sugar
Insides of 10 cardamom seed pods
1/2 cup candied ginger

Peel, core and cube pears and put into large pot. Add water, cream sherry, brown sugar and cardamom seeds. Simmer until cubes are soft, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool.
Use an immersion hand blender to turn mixture into a thick sauce. Refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Prepare candied ginger by mushing with the back of a spoon.
Put half of sauce into ice cream maker. After 20 minutes, mix in half of ginger. Process for another few minutes.
Repeat process to use remainder of sauce and ginger in second batch.

Hot Fudge Sauce
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup light or dark corn syrup
6 ounces Belgium dark chocolate bar, with 72 percent cocoa, chopped
2 ounces Ghirardelli chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix brown sugar, cocoa powder and corn syrup in saucepan until boiling. Let boil for 20 to 30 seconds, then remove from heat.
Immediately mix in chopped dark chocolate and chocolate chips. When smooth, mix in vanilla.
Serve warm or reheat in microwave for about 30 seconds.

Chocolate Chip Meringues
6 egg whites
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon Ghirardelli cocoa
1/2 cup Ghirardelli dark Chocolate Chips

Place silicone mats on two cookie trays.
Place egg whites in a mixer with whipping attachment and whip about 1 minute. While machine is running, add the granulated sugar and vanilla. Whip until shiny.
Slow mixer to a crawl and add confectioners sugar, then cocoa. Turn machine off and blend in chocolate chips.
Set the oven to 200 degrees.
Scoop out spoon-size blobs of meringue, hitting the side of the spoon against the silicone mats to form a peak as the spoon empties. Cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
Turn oven off but leave treats in closed oven for another hour. That will ensure you get a dry, crisp meringue.

Almond Meringues
6 egg whites
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
About 1/3 cup of almonds, sliced

Follow directions for the chocolate meringues above except leave out all chocolate and replace the vanilla extract with almond extract.
After dropping meringue blobs onto the silicon cookie sheet, hand sprinkle a few sliced almond slivers onto each cookie.
Bake at 200 for 2 1/2 hours then let sit in closed oven for an hour.

Judy Cowling,

jcowling3@cox.net