Ice cream petit fours-Daring bakers challenge August 2010

The August 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and baking.For the first time, The Daring Bakers parented with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostessof both. Using the theme of beurre noissete, or browned butter, Elissa chose to chalenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either ba Baked laska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa's challenge were Gourment magazine and David Libowitz's " The perfect scoop".
This month I desided to make Ice Cream Petit Fours since it is really hot here and I think that the ice cream is the best way to get cooled on a hot day. I relly like the ice cream recipe it as that good that I eat the hole batch and had to make a new one for the Petit fours. I liked the pound cake to but in the end the Ice Cream Petit Fours didn't meet to my expectations.They were good all right but I like the usuall Petit Fours more. But I will definitvly make the ice cream again.

Recipes:

Vanilla Ice Cream

250 ml milk
a pinch of salt
165 g sugar
1 vanilla bean
500 ml heavy cream
5 egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Heat the milk, salt and sugar in a medium saucepan until the liquid steams. Scrape out the seeds of vanilla bean with a paring knife and add to milk, along with the bean pod. Cove, remove from heat and let infuse for an hour.
Set up an ice bath by placing 2 litre bowl inside a large bowl partially filed with water and ice.Put a strainer on top of smaller bowl and pour in the cream.
In another bowl, loghtlly beat the egg yolks together. Reheat the milk in a medium saucepan until warmed, and than gradually pour 1/4 cup warmed milk into the yolks, constantly whisking to keep the eggs from scrambling. Once the yolks are warmed, scrape the yolk and milk mixture back to saucepan of warmed milk and cook over low heat. stir constantly and scrape the bottom with spatula until the mikture thickens back of the spatula.
Strain the custard into the hvy cream and stir the mixture until cool. Add the vanilla extract and refrigerate until thoroughly chlled, preferably overnight.
Remove the vanilla bean and freeze in an ice cream maker.If you dont have a n ice cream maker, you canmake i without machine.See istructions from David Lebowitz.

Brown Butter Pound Cake

275 g butter
200 g sifted cake flour (cake flour is flour mixed with corn starch so for this amounth of flour in order to get the cake flour you must mix it with four tablespoons of corn starch)
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
110 g brown sugar
75 g sugar
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Preeat the oven to 160 C and put a rack in the center.Butter and flour a 23 cm  X 23 cm square pan.
Place a butter in a skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. Pour in a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.
Whisk together cake flour, baking powder and salt.
Beat the brown butter, brown sugar and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy about 2 minutes. Beat  in the eggs one at the time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.
Stir in the flour mixture until just combined.
Scrape the mixture into the greased and floured square pan.Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap he pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
Cool on a pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right side up onto a cooling rack to cool comletely.

Chocolate Glaze

250 g dark chocolate
250 g heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Stir the heavy cream in a small  saucepan over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add the dark chocolate. Let sit  30 seconds, then stir to completely melt the chocolate.Stir in the vanilla extract and let cool a bit before glazing the petit fours.

Assembly instructions

Line a 23 m x 23 cm pan with plastic wrap, so that no sides of the pan are exposed and there is some extra plastic wrap hanging off the sides.Spread ice cream into the pan. Cover with more plastic wrap and freeze for several hours.
Once the brown butte pound cake has completely cooled, level he top with a cake leveler or a serrted knife.Then split the cake in half horizontally to form two thin layers.
Unwrap the frozen ice cream.Flip out onto one of the layers of cake and top with the second layer of cake. Wrap well in plastic wrap and return to the freezer overnight.
Make the chocolate glaze.
While the glaze cools trim 2 cm off each side of the ice cream cake to leave a perfectly square 19 cm ice cream cake. Cut the cake into twenty five petit fours each 4 cm x  4 cm.
Glaze the petit fours one at a time: place a petit four on a fork and spoon chocolate glaze over it.
Place the petit fours on parchment-lineted baking sheet and return to freezer for one hour.

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