Homemade Ice Cream Cakes

I previously posted a recipe for brownie chunk ice cream, and since then I have mastered a recipe. I thought I knew how to make ice cream then...but I didn't...now I do!! So now that I have learned how to make the best ice cream in the world, I decided to make the best dessert in the world...ICE CREAM CAKE! These are honestly SO incredible, and since I make it from scratch, I know exactly what's in it!

Here's photos that I took of the 2 cakes I made as I was making them. One has a chocolate bottom and a vanilla top and the other has a vanilla bottom and a chocolate top. Both have crumbled Oreo cookies and chocolate fudge in the middle. I will be making another one in a couple weeks that will have homemade brownie chunks instead of Oreo cookies. Mmmmmmm!

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Four Months.

This is rather unbelievable to me, but Adelaide is 4 months old today. The time is going scary fast. It's incredible watching a tiny human learn the simplest of things. When she does something new, I lose my shit over it. I get SO excited for her, and she often looks at me like I'm crazy, ha ha ha.

A few weeks ago I feel like we entered a stage of double time. Like, she is learning SO fast. Everyday I feel like she does something new. She's really becoming a person with likes and dislikes. Who interacts with the world around her. You can really see her learning right before your eyes. And just as you get used to your routine, wham, she switches it up because she's either growing, or teething, or over stimulated, or god knows what!! It's fun and sometimes not so fun, lol.

We had a few hard days last week as Bugs teething worsened. She woke up screaming in the night some nights. She was tired but in too much pain to sleep, she was hungry but it hurt to suck. I felt badly for her. I didn't want to introduce her to medicine like Tylenol. But then my sister recommended Camilia which my cousin Fiona had recommended to her. Seriously this stuff is MAGICAL!!! It works so fast. It's a homoeopathic non-numbing pain reliever and there's no alcohol, sugar, coloring, flavoring or preservatives! They also have other products for colds, flus, and colic. Anyway, it's great that we got this stuff when we did because her drooling has gotten crazier, her gums are redder and her cheeks are a bit bigger and often rosey, she grabs her hair by her ear when she's in pain, and just cries. So, we are for sure on the journey to getting teeth...(my poor nipples, lol.)

She has been a rather chatty Cathy lately. I love talking to her when she babbles. She'll laugh at herself. I mean, she's hilarious, and she knows it! She also seems to yell at me sometimes. I try not to laugh, ya know, maybe I took too long getting to her for whatever reason (maybe I was in the bath) and she'll have a right go at me, lol.

She is well on her way to sitting up! I put a pillow behind her and she plays with her toys or her toes...which is something she has just discovered. As she reaches for her toes, she often loses her balance and starts to fall to one side...don't worry, I'm always there to catch her.

And her toys! About 3 weeks ago she started showing interest in her toys, but now she really interacts with them. This all such great news because I can sit there with her and crochet and talk to her while we listen to music as she independently plays and chews on her toys while occasionally chatting back to me.

Breastfeeding is a cinch now! We usually lay down so I have 2 free hands so I can read while she feeds, but of course sometimes we just chat. I was wondering how much she ate, so I quickly figured that in a 24 hour period she eats about 10 to 12 times and I think she takes about 4 or 5 ounces per feed, which means my body is most likely producing about 40 to 60 ounces of milk a day! Eeep! This whole experience has just made me really feel and understand that I am an animal, a mammal, and it's just incredible.

It's just this whole new level of love that I never knew existed until she got here...I honestly CAN'T imagine my life without her. My pal Andrea said it well when she was talking about her wee one (Willa is almost 2 months old.) She said, "Feels like I've always known her, like she's always been here." And yes, that's exactly how I feel too.

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Homemade Brownies & Vanilla Ice Cream = Love.

Brownies and vanilla ice cream, put together to make the ultimate desert! BROWNIE CHUNK ICE CREAM!!! I make these brownies all the time, and I make vanilla ice cream occasionally and the other day I made both and put them together.

We'll start with making the brownies! They're easy and seriously some of the BEST brownies I've ever had! For reeeaaalz people! I will even give you a great icing recipe for them just in case you wanna make just brownies (which is written at the bottom of this post, so scroll down.)

BROWNIES

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), then grease and flour an 8 inch square pan.

You'll need:
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Now melt your butter in a medium to large size pot. Once it's melted remove the pot from the element. Now stir in the sugar, vanilla and eggs.

Then mix in the cocoa, flour, salt and baking powder.

Pour batter in to the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Do not over bake. If you're just making the brownies and would like icing on them, the recipe is at the end of the post, so scroll down!

ICE CREAM

Now it's time to make ice cream! This is a simple vanilla ice cream recipe. You can use an electric machine or a basic hand churning one. I'm gonna give instructions for the electric one since that's what I'm using.

You'll need:
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/8 cups white sugar
3 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

Pour the milk and sugar in a mixing bowl and mix with an electric mixer on low speed until the sugar dissolves. Then mix in heavy cream and vanilla.

Turn on the machine and pour the mixture into the freezer bowl and let mix until thickened, which will take about 20 to 25 minutes, depending on your machine.

While that's churning, cut up your brownie in to little chunks.

When the ice cream thickens, add the brownies.

You might have to stir in the rest!

DELICIOUS!

You can serve it up and eat it right away, or if you prefer it to be firmer, put it in an airtight container and in to the freezer until you can't wait any longer!!!! Mmmmmmmmm!

ICING
If you're just making brownies, here's how you make the icing.

You'll need:
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup confectioners sugar

Put the butter, cocoa, honey, vanilla, and confectioners sugar in a bowl and mix it till it's well blended. Spread on top of the brownies while they're still warm. Oooooooiiiiiiieeeeee!!!

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Weirdly Cute.

I started making these super weird baby rattles, lol. I can't tell you how much I LOVE them. More importantly, I can't tell you how much my baby girl LOVES hers. Well, I guess you can see from the photo above! The first one I made was obviously for her, it's a cthulhu. She chews and slobbers on that thing like a cat with catnip, lol. It's hilarious. So far I have 3 different ones, but I assure you, there's more to come.

Cthulhu Love.

Miss Medusa.

Brobot Robot.

These rattles are an eco-friendly, all natural cotton baby toy that's stuffed with 100% wool and rattles with popcorn kernels inside a reused plastic container, such as a pill bottle, or kinder surprise toy casing.
The best thing for a teething baby is a cold wet cloth. Well, this is a much more fun cloth! Wetting and freezing her snakey hair makes it perfect for babies to chew on to sooth those sore gums. My daughter LOVES hers, they're light and soft and easy to hold.

Come see what's available in my shops:
www.heatherbays.etsy.com
or
www.heatherbays.artfire.com
If you don't see the one you want, just email me and I will make it for you!
heatherbays@gmail.com
Stay tuned for zombies and such...

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Farewell Dear Squishy!

 Our little Squishy (formerly known as Shere Khan) is moving in with his girlfriend.  It's sort of an arranged girlfriend since he's never met her yet, but I think he's pretty excited.  He gets picked up tomorrow.  We are sad but it's for the best. 

 Moving from our big apartment in Winnipeg to a smaller place in Toronto and adding a baby to the mix has made things difficult.  Three cats, one baby and two adults in a small place is, well, squishy, lol.  We'll keep our other 2 cats for the time being and see how that goes, but we may need to find better homes for them too. 

For now, the cat that was once a kitten that we intended to find a home for in the first place will now be moving.  I'm both happy and sad but so thankful he's going to a good home, it makes the guilt less intense!  Have a good life little Squish.  We'll miss you.  xoxoxoxox.

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Cloth Diapering Mum!

We have gone cloth!  Yep!  The best decision ever.  We ordered a bunch of AMP diapers after much research, trying to decide how I wanted my cloth diapering system to work.  Thanks to our families and a dear friends Mum (one of the coolest Mum's around) we had enough money to buy them which makes this the ultimate gift.  We have been using them for almost 2 weeks now and it's SUPER easy and I just LOVE the diapers, they leak far less then disposables and are WAY cuter and so fashionable, lol.  Seriously, check out the colours!!

We ordered 20 bamboo inserts, 5 of each size of the microfibre inserts, and 21 of the one size pocket diapers in all different colours that fit babies from 7lbs to 35lbs.  I cut up a bunch of soft cotton fabric in squares about the size of my hand to use and wiping cloths.  I have a spray bottle and I filled it with water, olive oil, vinegar and baby soap.

I got the recipe from the AMP diapers site:
2 Cups of previously boiled water
1 Tbsp of baby shampoo or baby wash
1 tsp of cooking oil or baby oil (we prefer cooking oil such as canola or olive oil)
1 Tbsp Vinegar (anti fungal) 
Pour over wipes in an old wipe container or a similar plastic container of your choice.

Cloth diapers are much easier then I imagined.  With what I ordered it seems I can go 4 or 5 days before having to do laundry.  My system is something like this...I will fold a bamboo inserts in 3 on the short side (they are rectangular) and lay it on the diaper, this way when I change her I can reuse the diaper if it's not soiled and just throw the soiled insert in the diaper pail bag.  And sometimes I will stuff the diaper with a microfibre insert if we'll be playing or going out because they seem really soft and cushy that way and it's much easier and quicker to deal with when you're out...you just throw your diaper in the wet bag instead of the garbage. Here's a short video:

When it comes to laundry day, I just throw both of the pail liner bags in to the front loader and do a cold rinse and then add 1/8 of a teaspoon of Allen's natural laundry soap and do a hot wash.  Then I throw the clean diapers in the dryer with 2 clean dry towels (to shorten drying time.)  Ta-da!  That's it.  It sure beats going to the shops and spending like $20 a week on a pack of diapers and lugging them home, only to collect bags of dirty diapers which then end up in the garbage. 

These specific diapers will fit Adelaide for her whole diapering life and if we decide to have more babies, we can use them on them too!  My opinion after just 2 weeks is obviously grand, but I will do another review in the near future as an update letting you know how things are going with them.  But I seriously can't imagine ever going back to disposables!