All American Desserts

During the week of the 4th of July, we were visited by some very special guests, Leah and Cindy, Nelson's sister and mom (in town from San Diego and Maryville, MO respectively!). And while the heat kept us from enjoying the outdoors for a few days, we didn't let it stop us from tackling a jam-packed day of MIHM activities. Welcome to special guest/4th of July holiday edition of MIHM! 

Thanks to ideas from our new mother-daughter team, we decided to make a peach cobbler to serve for dessert on the 4th. My mom also found a recipe for homemade ice cream, so we planned to serve vanilla ice cream on the side. Here's the recipe to the cobbler. Our variations included our own self-rising flour (after a quick google search on how to do so) and fresh peaches instead of canned peaches (a tasty decision!).

After a field trip to the grocery store, we had all the ingredients needed:

Fresh peaches, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, butter and milk. 

Because there were four of us packed into my small kitchen, we divided the tasks and got to work! Cindy peeled the peaches and then my mom sliced them.

Leah was working on the batter.

And then I added sugar to the peaches and let them boil and then simmer on the stove for 10 minutes.

After melting butter in a 9x13 glass dish, we added the batter first. Then we evenly spooned the peaches on top of the batter. This might seem backwards, but the batter is meant to rise up through the peaches as it bakes.

We placed the cobbler in the oven and baked it for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. After it was fully baked, we let it cool down, and covered it with foil until we were ready to serve and eat. 

While the cobbler was baking, we whipped up an easy recipe for homemade ice cream. For the ice cream, we just had to combine half & half, heavy whipping cream, sugar and vanilla extract together. 

After whisking the ingredients together, we needed to seal and refrigerate the ice cream mixture until we were ready to make it in the Kitchen Aid mixer. 

We planned to spend the day at my parents, relaxing by the pool, snacking in the air conditioned house and lighting fireworks in the street once it was dark. So, our guest bloggers helped me pack up the cobbler, and we brought it over to my parents along with the ice cream mixture. 

After a great BBQ meal, it was time for dessert. We added the liquid ice cream into the special frozen ice cream maker bowl and mixed it on level 2 for 20 minutes. 

Unfortunately (and we aren't sure why) our ice cream never thickened like it was supposed to. While it did get cold and creamy, after about 25 minutes it was more milkshake than ice cream. We didn't let that stop us. We ladled it over the cobbler anyway!

One serving of peach cobbler.

Peach cobbler, vanilla "milkshake" dessert is served! 

Despite the ice cream mishap, the dessert was delectable. The peach cobbler was cooked to perfection with the peaches soft and sweet, and the batter was doughy and delicious. And although the ice cream was milkshake consistency, it was SO tasty. Very vanilla-y and the perfect compliment to the cobbler. 

The Girls Team, our mother-daughter guest team Leah, Cindy, and everyone else all loved the dessert. We all had plenty of ideas about other types of cobblers we could make using different fresh fruits like berries or apples. It was the perfect ending to a great 4th of July spent relaxing with family.

Thanks to our guest team, Leah and Cindy. We hope to host you for MIHM again soon! 

Summer Strawberry Jam

Last summer, my mom and I took a field trip to a berry farm and after picking black raspberries and boysenberries, we canned our own homemade jam. You can read all about it on this post, but one thing we never really admitted was how weird the jam actually turned out. While it tasted great, we overused pectin, and the consistency was more like hard jello than spreadable jam. I don’t think either of us actually used all of the jam we made. Sorry to those of you who received the test jam as gifts! :)

This past week, we decided to give homemade jam another shot. We found a recipe without pectin, since we were both a little scarred from our last experience with the crazy stuff! All we needed for this Strawberry Jam recipe was two quarts of strawberries and six cups of sugar. Here’s the full recipe if you want to try making this at home:

 

After washing the strawberries, we removed the stems. Then we added them to a large bowl and crushed them using a potato masher.

 

 

 

Next, we combined the strawberries and sugar in a large pot. We stirred it often as the sugar dissolved and the mixture started to boil.

 

When the jam was almost done cooking, we scraped the foam layer off the top. We also tested the jam in a few different ways to make sure it was completely done. We tried the spoon test (pour the jam off a spoon and evaluate its texture as it slides back into the pot) and the plate test (put a plate in the freezer, add some jam on the cold plate, if the jam is sticky, it is ready) but we weren’t ever really confident in what these “test” results were telling us. If any of you have insight on this process, we’d appreciate it! Eventually after about 30-45 minutes on the stove, the Girls Team decided it was time to can the jam.

 

If you want a lot of details on the canning process, our post from last summer is more thorough. Essentially, we sterilized the jars and lids, ladled the jam into the jars making sure nothing dripped on the sides, and then added the jars back into the boiling water for sealing. The canning and sealing process took about 25-30 minutes.

 

 

 

The next morning we tried the jam at breakfast. It was delicious! And most importantly, the texture was smooth and spreadable – not too thick and not too runny.  While this recipe didn’t make as many jars of jam as the one from last summer, we were shooting for quality over quantity and definitely found it.

 

 

Even though we’ve attempted many craft projects and recipes during our time with MIHM, we are never done learning! It was nice to attempt a recipe again and know it was successful and an improvement over the first try.

And lastly, happy 4^th of July weekend to everyone! We have a special July 4^th Edition of MIHM featuring some special guests so stay tuned!