Samoa Ice Cream Sauce

After having a fabulous time at the Girl Scouts' Cookie Bake-Off Benefit last week and enjoying Samoa-flavored coffee and also buying some Samoa cookies to take home, I have been practically dreaming of the luscious combination of caramel, chocolate, and coconut.

And so, it's hardly surprising that after talking about ice cream sauces with Craig recently - telling him that I make really lovely caramel and hot fudge varieties - I would have an epiphany: combine these two flavors, add some coconut milk, and make a liquid variation on one of my favorite cookies.

The only thing better would be to pour this over Edy's Samoa ice cream, and then crumble a couple of the cookies over the top!

Samoa Ice Cream Sauce

• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup half-and-half
• 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Bring brown sugar, corn syrup, and coconut milk to a boil over medium-high heat in a 1-quart saucepan; stir constantly and cook for 5 minutes - mixture will foam up. Remove from heat, then stir in butter and vanilla. Stir in half-and-half and chocolate chips until smooth. Return sauce to a boil, and cook for 3 minutes without stirring. Pour into a jar, and let the sauce cool for awhile before serving; if it's too hot, it will burn you and it will simply melt the ice cream instead of turning into a chewy, fudgy sauce when it's poured over the cold substance.

Makes not quite 1-1/2 cups.

Schrafft's Hot Fudge Sauce

Every once in awhile, I would have half-days at school. Sometimes I'd just come home on the bus, eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and watch "As the World Turns" or "The Galloping Gourmet" with my mother.

But on other occasions, she would pick me up and we would spend part of the afternoon together. My mother's health was quite fragile and she often wasn't well, so the half-days when she would meet me at school were special. She would sometimes take me out to lunch at Schrafft's.

Schrafft's, according to NYCnosh.com, was an institution:

"... at its peak, there were more than fifty Schrafft’s in New York City, offering three full-service meals a day, drinks, and desserts in well-appointed and obsessively clean dining rooms. Schrafft’s occupied a territory somewhere between a diner and moderately-priced American restaurant ...."

Another site, remembering New York City in 1946, states that:

"The image Schrafft's sought to project was of a genteel place that served 'plain, clean, wholesome American cooking,' in the words of Frank Shattuck who had started the company's restaurant business .... Many Schrafft's had dark wood paneling and Colonial furniture. There were bud vases on the tables."

Because the company had originated as a candy manufacturer before branching out into restaurants, Schrafft's is most famous for its desserts ... and one sweet treat in particular: hot fudge sundaes.

The recipe for the rich, dark chocolate sauce is easily found online and in cookbooks - no one ever said it was a secret recipe!

Someone who shall remain nameless (for the sake of protection) has told me that this hot fudge sauce is even better than Sanders' ... gasp! This from someone born in Detroit and raised in Southeast Michigan!

My grandmother would come to visit us in New York and bring jars of Sanders' milk chocolate hot fudge, which I adore. But I've gotta say, the Schrafft's recipe is pretty lusciously indulgent, too.

You might just want to try this and see how they compare ....

Schrafft's Hot Fudge Sauce
(slightly modified from the original version)

3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup skim milk
1/4 cup half-and-half
2/3 cup corn syrup
2 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 teaspoon vinegar

Place all ingredients into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally; boil for 7 minutes, stirring once or twice, then let rest 30 minutes before serving.

Makes 1-1/4 cups of sauce.

National Pecan Sandies Day

Yet another food holiday -- I love it! Each day there is a reason to celebrate food, though some festivities -- like National Strawberry Shortcake Day -- are more fun than others (February 29: National Frog Legs Day).

Today is National Pecan Sandies Day: a tribute to those fabulous shortbread cookies which are rich with both butter and toasted nuts. Perfect with iced tea or milk or coffee, they really require no embellishment. And yet ....

It seemed a shame to just leave the cookies sitting on a plate, looking forlorn. Why not dress them up a bit for their big day? I debated whether to crush some to form the crust of a pie or cheesecake, but it seemed that this would hide them rather than letting them shine in the spotlight.

And so, I compromised: I crushed a few cookies to disperse them throughout a sundae, letting their crunch and flavor complement the simple beauty of a good quality vanilla ice cream, and letting their natural affinity for chocolate play a role, as well.

But then, for use as both garnish and dipper, I left a sandie intact for each serving. It is National Pecan Sandie Day, after all, not Cookie Crumb Celebration Day ....

Pecan Sandie Sundae

4 cups vanilla ice cream
1-1/3 cups Sanders milk chocolate hot fudge, slightly warmed
12 pecan sandies

Place half-cup ice cream into each of 4 serving dishes, then drizzle with a few tablespoons of hot fudge.

Reserve 4 cookies for garnish, then crush the remaining cookies. Divide half of the crumbs among the ice cream servings.

Divide the remaining ice cream among the serving dishes, then sprinkle the rest of the crumbs over it. Pour the remainder of the hot fudge sauce over the tops of the desserts, and garnish each with a whole cookie.

Serves 4.

Frugal Floozie Friday -- B-24's Espresso Bar

This is only the third installment of Frugal Floozie Friday, and already I think it's probably going to be the deal to beat!

This week's venture took Jeremy and me to B-24's Espresso Bar, which is also a soup/sandwich shop and ice cream parlor, not to mention just being a comfortable place to hang out and chitchat or read or "coffice" (coffee + office).

B-24's serves hot fudge sundaes made with Sanders hot fudge. If you've spent any time in Michigan, you know that this Detroit-made product is so supreme, so rich, so luscious, that you will never want to eat any other brand. I'm serious -- give me a jar of the Milk Chocolate variety (which has a hint of a caramel flavor to it), a spoon, and some privacy ... doesn't take much more to make me happy in this life!

My maternal grandmother would come to visit us in NYC when I was growing up, and always brought some of this with her. Truly, I cannot tell you how much I adore it, both on its own merits and because of the memories. So already, I had to love a place that served this beloved Michigan product.

That they serve the hot fudge over two scoops of ice cream only makes it better.

That they top it off with a slew of whipped cream and a cherry only enhances it.

But that B-24's serves this enormous quantity of coma-inducing lusciousness for only $3.99 -- $3.99!!! -- makes it perfection ... :)

This is a feast that one could, theoretically, eat by oneself ... Jeremy did it, after all. (20-year-old males excel at such tasks!) But it's really perfect to share with someone you love -- a cheap date, but of the most romantic kind.

So, not only did we stay within the $5/person budget that Frugal Floozie Friday requires; but this is something you can actually feed TWO people with for that $5 bill! Really, does it get any better than that???

Actually, it can: go on Friday nights from 7:30 - 9:30 p.m., and enjoy performances by local talents at Open Mic Night. (I'm trying to persuade Jeremy to bring his guitar down there and perform, with or without one of his buddies.)

Coffee is provided by area roasters: Mighty Good and Roos Roast from Ann Arbor, and Chazzano from nearby Ferndale. Michigan-made Faygo sodas and Vernor's ginger ale are displayed proudly in the cooler.

And the very name of the shop is a tribute to the B-24 airplanes that were manufactured at the nearby Willow Run Airport, which produced nearly 8700 of the bombers during World War II.

B-24's celebrates all the very best that this area has to offer!

B-24's Espresso Bar
217 West Michigan Avenue
Ypsilanti, MI 48197


Frugal Floozie Friday: Food and Fun for Five Dollars or Less ... Really!!!