homemade fior di latte gelato

I have long held the philosophy that sugar isn't worth ingesting unless it is part of a homemade desert, and even then I tend to use much less sugar than the typical recipe of that type calls for. The one exception to this rule that I have made is to eat gelato when living in Italy, because 1) it is hot there and 2) it isn't as sweet as your typical store-bought ice cream, so it actually tastes pretty nice. My all-time favourite flavour of Itaian gelato is Fior di Latte (which means "flower of milk", where "flower" = "best of", and, indeed, it is).

It has been several years since we bought our ice cream maker, and I have made a variety of yummy ice creams over the years. Yet, for some reason, it took till last November before it occurred to me to ask google for a recipe for Fir di Latte gelato, and then it took till today before I remembered to try it. If I hadn't had some cream in the fridge that we bought on the weekend and then didn't use I may not have looked into the "recipes I haven't tried yet" folder on my phone, but I did, and I am glad that I did.

The version I wrote down back in November called for 2 cups of milk (or half and half) and one cup cream. However, the "ecological" cream available in the store here comes in 300 ml packages. Therefore I put the cream into a 4-cup Pyrex mixing bowl, and added milk to it till I had a total of two cups liquid. Then I put one more cup of milk into a sauce pan on the stove with half a cup of sugar (the original recipe called for 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar, so, of course, my first try is with the low end of the range) and heated it till the sugar dissolved.

Then I mixed it with the milk/cream and a pinch of salt, and let it cool a bit before putting it into the ice cream maker. After it was done I did what I always do--divide the batch into a dozen silicone muffin cups and pop it into the freezer to become firmer while I happily licked the spoon, ice cream maker insert thingie that stirs the cream, and, of course, the walls of the ice cream maker itself. Then I washed up and went back to the freezer and took out one of the not yet firm servings, and ate it. Then had a second, because, Yum! ...now I am contemplating if I want to give in to the desire to go get a third.

a decent turnout

We had seven of us for Frostheim's craft night tonight. Not quite all at the same time though--V. arrived early and left early. S. came a bit later, but also didn't stay long, and J., a totally new guy, arrived during the last 45 minutes we were there. However, I am glad I did, since O. had asked me to bring in my armour and swords and stuff to show him, and he sounds keen to try fighter practice on Sunday. Also, since the armour was there O. spent the evening trying stuff on and thinking about what he will want to do differently when he builds his own, so it was worth the effort of bringing all the stuff.

L. had finished the nålbinding project she started last week (her first, ever), and was ready to be shown how to start a project again. She is one of the students in the group who is also in my department, and trying to decide what she wants to do for her Master's project, so I shared some ideas of projects she could do with the laser. My apprentice, E. is the other, and she is also considering laser-based projects for her Master's, if she doesn't go with a geophysics project. It will be interesting to see what they wind up choosing.

My other apprentice, A. finished a project tonight--a lovely blue wool triangle cloak for which she has tablet woven a maroon and grey edging. I quite like how it came out. I have made progress on my glasses case--the strap is nearly completely attached now, only 12 cm of seam left to do on it, but now it is finally wearable. I made the strap for this one a good bit longer than the last, so it rides down by my hip, instead of my waist, which means that I don't have to remember to take it off when I put on my coat, which will make life much easier. It will also be nice to always have all four pairs of glasses in reach, so I can just grab the pair I need for any given task, and not try to use the wrong ones because I couldn't be bothered walking all the way to my backpack.

Last night's snow actually stuck in a few, isolated, spots, which meant that tiny pockets of the world were fresh and white this morning (if only about 1 mm thick), but, of course, it didn't last, and by the middle of the day it was +5 C. Even so, there is still a fair bit of snow out on the field, even if it is mostly gone in the forest and up by the house. I need to remember to take a photo of the yard tomorrow to compare with the ones I took last year and the year before on that date.