Cafe Liz

The mix of spices in this ice cream may not be the definitive recipe for masala chai — if there even is such a thing — but it produces a taste that I associate with the Indian tea, and is quite good. The light brown demarara sugar rounds out the flavor with a light molasses kick. Now, let’s enjoy some ice cream while it’s still warm.

Yes, really. I could just call it rice ice cream, but then you’d think I’m weird. If you think about it, rice ice cream is pretty much just cold rice pudding — the cooked rice takes on a chewier texture, and the dairy-based pudding forms a soft, creamy ice cream. After all, rice pudding contains all the ingredients you’d put into a basic vanilla ice cream, plus rice. I can’t take credit for this idea on my own.We encountered it [...]

I have a slight mango obsession. I’ve been stockpiling them. Every week I go to the market, I feel an urge to buy more — regardless of how many are left in our fridge. I must have had about 20 at some point last week. I’m just so excited that they’re both in season and affordable. So, I’ve been forced (oh, the pain) to find creative ways to go through them. A mango a day keeps the doctor away, no? [...]

As you may have noticed, I’ve been making a lot of ice cream and chilled drinks lately, and not too much of what I’d call “real food.” That’s because the last thing I want to do right now is stand over a hot stove (or worse, turn on the oven). The weather is so hot that I’m feeling rather well cooked as it is. Indeed, (wo)man cannot survive on ice cream and watermelon alone, but we’ll worry about that another [...]

This recipe really gives it all away at once — cherry coconut sorbet with amaretto. That’s what’s in it: cherries, coconut and amaretto. Oh, and a bit of sugar. It’s really that simple. I’ve been eying the beautiful cherries at the market for the past several weeks now. They’re not exactly the cheapest fruit, but fortunately the price has been coming down to 20-25 shekels a kilo, and I usually make the splurge. It’s well worth it, because the cherries [...]

It seems there’s quite a demand for a loquat sorbet recipe. I’ve actually been planning to make one for a while, but a request from a reader in Malta (echoed by others in Israel) told me that now’s the time — after all, the season’s almost over. So, as the weather becomes warmer, what better way to serve our last loquats than frozen into a smooth sorbet with mint and lemon?

Passion fruit is downright weird — it’s ripe once the peel begins to wrinkle, at which point you slice it open to find it filled with yellow goo. Not the kind of texture you’d usually associate with fruit. That said, it’s a fabulous ingredient for cooking — full of intense, tangy flavor. It also happens to be in season. I picked up a bucket full of passion fruit for less than five shekels (about $1.25) at my favorite corner greengrocer. [...]

This was another one of our favorite foods in Japan, even if one particular ice cream cone dripped and left green stains on my favorite skirt. I prepared it almost the same way I made another kind of tea ice cream — the Thai tea ice cream recipe I posted a while back. The only differences were the kind of tea I used, and a few drops of food coloring (yes, I admit it).

I made this ice cream in honor of my cousin and her fiancee when they came to visit. I really had no excuse other than that. That, and everyone agrees it tastes fabulous. How fabulous? It’s quite possibly the best ice cream I’ve ever made.