A Jonathan Original

Jonathan combined all his homemade ice cream knowledge to form our absolute favorite. It's Dulce de Leche!

Disclaimer: The following recipe makes about a gallon of ice cream and we half it most of the time.

You need:

Rock Salt

4 cups 1/2 & 1/2

4 cups heavy cream

16 egg yolks

2 cups sugar

3 tsp vanilla ext.

1. Bring creams to a simmer, then remove from heat.
2. In a separate bowl whisk egg yolks until they lighten in color. They should be noticeably lighter.
3. Slowly whisk sugar into yolks.
4. Temper 1/3 the cream into the eggs, then add all back to sauce pan. Temper very slowly so you don't have scrambled eggs.
5. Stir over low heat until it reaches 170 degrees and thickens to coat a spoon. Don't rush this by turning heat on high, there is still the risk of scrambled eggs in your ice cream.
6. Stir in 1 cup dulce de leche.
7. Allow to sit for 30 minutes at room temp.
8. Add vanilla.
9. Chill in fridge first for less time in ice cream maker.
10. Add the ice cream to your maker and follow the standard instructions, ice, salt, etc.

Light.Simple.Good

Oh, and pretty! Trifle's are just pretty. One of my favorite desserts to make! If you are spending a lot of time on the rest of the meal and don't want to have to worry about making a difficult dessert, it's perfect. It can be a great summertime dessert because it's light and involves berries, but also is great following a "heavier" meal any time of year.

You can get a basic glass trifle bowl at Walmart for under $7. I have also prepared this in individual servings using wine glasses which is very cute. For me, the store bought pound cakes work amazingly in this.

All the ingredients you need!

Prepare your strawberries.

Add sugar and allow your berries to macerate in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Doing this makes even off season strawberries delish!

Cut your pound cake into bite size cubes and roll each piece around in amaretto liqueur. One of my favorite aroma's.

Place a layer of pound cake in the bottom of your trifle bowl.
Whip up some cream. I add a little powdered sugar to mine. I would say it's definitely worth the extra effort to make your whipped cream.

...another layer.

Oh, the strawberries look all nice & shiny!

Add blueberries for 4th of July!

You can continue with as many layers as you want depending on how many you're serving or how long you want to keep it in your fridge. :)

Garnish with chocolate shavings or mint if you have either around!

Red Velvet Cheesecake

I never knew there was such a thing until the other day when I came across this recipe. It turned out great and if you like cheesecake you've got to try it. It's rich and creamy. My life group girls and I shared it yesterday and Kayla mentioned that the icing "makes it"... so don't skip that step!