Sunday, June 29, 2014

Ice cream sodas for summer

I'm back!  Excited to be blogging again.  Some lovely ladies in my family have expressed interest in being guest contributors, so be on the lookout for that as well.

Right before an amazing trip to San Francisco (technically for a conference, but tons of fun!!), I hosted a teambuilding cookout for some employees of my department.  For a fun and interactive dessert, we made ice cream sodas (got the idea from my hands-down favorite food network star.  However, I added one minor twist - a vanilla ice cream soda made with a homemade vanilla syrup and vanilla bean ice cream.

Serves 6.

Ingredients:

For the vanilla syrup:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon vanilla

For the sodas:
1 quart vanilla bean ice cream
1 liter plain seltzer

To make the syrup:

Heat sugar and water over medium-low heat.  Stir occasionally until dissolved.
















Scrape the bottom of the pot with a spoon.  When the sugar has dissolved, there will be no grains of sugar on the spoon.  If the spoon looks like shown below, the sugar still needs to dissolve.
















When all the sugar has dissolved, add the vanilla.  Continue to heat for 3 to 5 more minutes, or until syrup has thickened.

















Remove from heat and allow to cool.


To make the ice cream sodas:

Put 2 to 3 Table spoons of syrup in a medium sized glass.  While stirring with a fork, fill the glass to 2/3 full with seltzer.

















Gently level a generous scoop of the ice cream into the glass. Be careful, as it can easily foam.  Serve with a straw or spoon.






























Note:  Be sure to tell your friends what the vanilla syrup is, because it looks a lot like honey.  Later, I got creative with the leftover vanilla syrup and made a vanilla berry sundae.  IT also tastes great stirred into your morning coffee!