It took extreme laziness and a heat wave to finally get me here. All I needed was a box of ice cream cones, but it was too hot to walk and I too lazy to get in the car. After eight years, I finally broke out the pizzelle iron that’s been sitting in a cabinet since we moved into our house. Yes, eight. It’s been so long I can’t even remember why I wanted to make waffle cookies in the first place. But on this day, when raspberry-tayberry gelato base was chilling in the fridge, I was just glad it was there.
Let’s not get in to the whole, “What’s the difference between ice cream and gelato” thing because with this recipe from Making Artisan Gelato, I honestly don’t know. It has cream, milk and eggs like ice cream. I made it in a gelato machine. Two out of three, we’re calling it gelato. The book recipe is raspberry, but I used a mix of raspberries and tayberries with a smidge of blackberry-raspberry jam. That’s the luxury of summer. When the berries are this plentiful and this gorgeous at the market, a mix is fair game.
And these pizzelle? From Baking with Julia. Easy peasy. Flour, baking powder, salt, eggs, sugar, butter and a teaspoon of vanilla. The pizzelle baker comes with a rolling cone, but the truth is, you won’t be able to roll it to a point like a true cone…at least I couldn’t. Canoli shells, yes. An ice cream cone, no. So I flipped the script. And made little waffle cookie bowls. Immediately pressing them into a bowl with enough of a shape to turn up the ends into a graceful little gelato bowl. Win.
Should you go out and buy a pizzelle maker, only to use once in eight years? How much do you like ice cream cones? Or ice cream sandwiches? How often do you have three or four or five people over with ice cream as a quick and easy dessert? How lazy are you on hot days? I can’t answer for you, but that pizzelle maker might be seeing a lot more action in the next couple months.
RECIPES: Raspberry Gelato, Pizzelle Cookies
