February 27: National Kahlua Day

I find it interesting, that today, National Kahlua Day, is also the one-month anniversary of my daily blog! It all started with chocolate cake, which is one of my favorites, but I have to say, this recipe might be my favorite so far!

First of all, I would like to propose a toast to my One-Month Anniversary of this blog. Let's drink to that!

Note: I did drink to this actually. I mixed rum, Kahlua, a little bit of coffee creamer, and coffee together. To be extra fancy, I put a little rum on the rim of my coffee mug, and dunked it in sugar. I mean, a one-month anniversary is pretty special, make it fancy! To be extra fancy, I recommend drinking out of a fun coffee mug. I chose a mug that is "It's a Small World" themed, from Disneyland.

The good thing about Kahlua, is that is is multi-purposeful. You can put it in coffee, on top of ice cream, on top of strawberries, in frosting, and you can pretty much add it to any dessert recipe.
Note: Yes, I have used Kahlua for all of the above mentioned occasions.

But to celebrate today, my one-month blogging anniversary, I decided to challenge myself and be extra fancy. The goal: To make Kahlua ice cream bon-bons. Did I succeed? Well, keep reading to find out.

Note: This recipe was labeled "Advanced." I'm not sure if I am actually an "Advanced" baker or not. But let's hope I am. 

JazzyJ's Superb Kahlua Bon-Bons Recipe:

Ingredients:
-2 cups heavy cream
-1 3/4 cups whole milk
-1/2 cup Kahlua
-3 tablespoons instant espresso powder or instant coffee
-6 egg yolks
-3 cups chocolate chips
-1 tablespoon vegetable oil

You are going to need an ice cream maker. Luckily, since I am a true ice cream lover (even though technically I'm not supposed to eat it because I'm allergic to milk), my parents gifted me with an ice cream maker a few years ago for my birthday. My ice cream maker, along with my donut maker, have kept me sane.

If you don't have an ice cream maker, I'm thinking you could buy coffee flavored ice cream, let it melt a little, mix in some Kahlua, and refreeze it.

Instructions:
1.  In a pot, combine cream, milk, Kahlua, and espresso powder/instant coffee. Bring to a gentle boil and remove from heat.
2. Beat the egg yolks until thick in a bowl. Add in one cup of warm cream-milk mixture and stir together. (I think you do this so that when you add the egg mixture to the warm ingredients, it doesn't cook the egg. It would be rather gross if you had an egg-y ice cream mixture.)
3. Now add the egg mixture into the pot containing the rest of the cream-milk mixture. Cook over low-medium heat and stir constantly until the mixture thickens. The mixture should be at the consistency that it coats a spoon without dripping off.
4. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a container you can refrigerate in. (Note: I didn't have a fine mesh strainer. I read online you could try to strain it through either paper towels or coffee filters. I tried coffee filters. I laid two coffee filters over the strainer and dumped the mixture onto it. It didn't work. The mixture wouldn't drain through the coffee filters. However, my regular strainer did a good enough job.)
5. Cover and refrigerate mixture for 3+ hours or until the mixture is cold. The colder the mixture, the better it will work when you pour it in the ice cream maker.
6. Once mixture is cold, pour into your pre-frozen ice cream maker. I let mine mix for about 1 hour. My ice cream maker never turns the ice cream hard, it normally turns out to be a thick consistency of soft serve. That's ok. You are going to freeze it anyway.
7.Transfer to an airtight container and freeze ice cream in the freezer over night.

Step. 3. The whole mixture heating.

Step 4. This is the "junk" that remained after I strained it through a regular strainer.

Ready to create ice cream!

The ice cream after it has been mixing for about an hour.

The Next Day:
8. Line two baking sheets with foil and freeze for at least 2 hours.
9. Working quickly, scoop approximately tablespoon sized balls of the ice cream onto the foil covered baking sheets. Once you have one sheet full, place immediately in freezer and use the second foil covered baking sheet. Make approximately 24 (or more) ice cream balls.
10. Stick a tooth pick in each ice cream ball and freeze until very cold, at least 2 hours.
11. Melt chocolate chips and vegetable oil in a double boiler until just warm. (Remember, you are working with ice cream and ice cream melts easily.)
12. Holding an ice cream ball by the toothpick (have you ever heard that sentence before? haah) hold over a bowl and coat the ice cream ball in the melted chocolate. I would recommend making a couple of these bon-bons and then putting them immediately in the freezer before making more. Once they are all chocolate covered, freeze for at least 30 minutes before eating.
13. Think of all your hard work, and eat one! I wouldn't recommend sharing with too many people. These take a considerate amount of work. While it is good to share, it is also good to enjoy. Don't eat too many at once though, they are not low in calories!
14. Take a picture and share on Instagram and Facebook.

Not too bad, ehhh?

 Okay, so maybe they do look a little, lumpish? It's really really hard to get the warm chocolate, on the cold ice cream. As soon as the chocolate touches the ice cream, it hardens, and then it repels itself from the ice cream (possible because the ice cream is melting?) It's a weird thing. Probably due to some science-y thing that I don't know of.

And then there is this picture. 

Note: It is very important to note, that each ice cream blob does have chocolate on it. That's what is important. It is not important the amount of chocolate, just that each one has some chocolate on it.

These make me laugh. But they still taste amazing! It's probably the Kahlua in them...

Close up of a good looking bon-bon!

And a close up of a not so good looking one.

So was I successful? It depends on what your definition of successful is. I hand made ice cream and I hand made bon-bons. Not a lot of people can say that. The ice cream itself, was superb. It was so fresh, creamy, and rich. At one point, while trying to get the chocolate on the ice cream ball, more chocolate wound up on me, than on any of the ice cream balls. Is that successful? I don't know. But I do know that I laughed really hard and questioned how I got myself into this situation. It was an adventure. I learned new skills. And I now have a really big appreciation that there are machines that can make bon-bons, so that each time I have a craving, I don't have to go through this two day process. But really, they were really really good. I told my parents to close their eyes when eating them, so they weren't turned off by the appearance. If I were to serve them at a party, I might blind fold everyone first, but I still guarantee they would be a huge success!

I have a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education. I was born to be a teacher. I believe the most important part of teaching, is the learning part. I learned a lot from this. And because of this, I'm declaring it a success.