Sweet Pea Journey

Family, Friendship, Food, Fun and Everything in Between!

Tagged: Summer treat

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Basic Bubble Tea

If you have never tried bubble tea, you need to. Even if you swear you don’t like tapioca bubbles, just try the tea. It’s so good and takes literally minutes to make!

You will need:

  • 2 black tea bags
  • 4 cups of water
  • 4 TBSP sweetened condensed milk (or to taste)
  • a handful of tapioca bubbles (you can get these in Asian market)

If you don’t like tapioca bubbles, skip the steps of cooking these bubbles, your tea will still be out of this world amazing.

To make the tapioca bubbles:

Bring a small pot of water to a rapid boil. Put a handful of the tapioca bubbles into the boiling water and stir so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Lower the heat to medium and let it go for about 10 minutes, or until the bubbles are translucent all the way through the center and floating. The easiest way to test if your tapioca bubbles are done is to try one. Make sure the center of the tapioca balls are cooked all the way through and no chalky or hard spots.

Drain the hot water and leave the bubbles in some cold water and set aside. You can make a bigger batch and store them in water bath in a container in the fridge for a few days.

To make the tea:

Bring the 4 cups of water to a boil, kill the heat. Leave the tea bags in the boiling water for 5 minutes and discard. Let tea cool down for a few minutes, or simply add a few ice cubes to speed up the process.

Add sweetened condensed milk to your tea and stir until it’s all mixed through. Taste for sweetness. Add more sweetened condensed milk as you wish.

To serve, scoop some tapioca bubbles into a glass, fill with ice cubes as desired, top off with milk tea. Viola, what a fancy summer treat!

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Home Made Horchata

This is a Mexican staple drink. It is so good, it makes me feel sinful every time I have one of these.. But who knows how simple it is to make at home?! Let’s try it out.

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/3 cup of white rice
  • 5 cups of water, divided
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 1 cup of milk of choice (I had vanilla soy milk, that’s what I used, tastes AMAZING!)
  • 1 TBSP vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 2/3 cup white sugar

Method:

In a good blender, blend white rice, 2 cups of water and cinnamon sticks until roughly blended. Then add the remaining water and blend another minute.

Pour everything into a glass pitcher and refrigerate over night.

Strain the rice water mixture the next day and discard all solids. Add milk of choice, vanilla, sugar and ground cinnamon. Mix well and serve chilled, or over ice.

Enjoy a cup of home made horchata on a hot summer day is just heavenly.

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3-Ingredient Melon Drink

This one was amazingly good! I had to say, it surprised me too. Try it on a hot summer day, you get fruits into your kids, and they are super happy thinking they just got treats. And the bonus? There are literally only 3 ingredients!

Without further due, let’s dive into the details:

Ingredients:

2 cups of cubed seedless watermelon, chilled or frozen

1 cup of cubed cantaloupe, chilled or frozen

1 lime

Method:

Dump watermelon and cantaloupe into a blender, zest the lime and squeeze the juice into the blender. Blend until no more chunks of melons are visible.

Serve up and watch happy faces!

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Ice Cream Cake with Shortcuts

OK, I have to admit, this picture is almost one year old. Believe it was taken last July, but I seem to keep forgetting to make this super easy yet tasty treat for the kids this year.

We went to DQ today, eating the blizzard, I suddenly remembered this treat to keep in my freezer for a quick summer night dessert. Guess what’s going onto my do-make list? :p

Ingredients:

1 tub (or 2 tubs, or 3, if you want mixed flavor) store-bought quality ice cream, or your home-made ice cream. Let me tell ya, the home-made ice cream is SO MUCH better than store-bought! I will talk about the home-made ice cream in another blog another day. This is shortcut #1

1 loaf of store-bought sponge cake – shortcut #2

Toppings and surprises, such as M&Ms, chocolate chips, sweetened shredded coconut, minced gummy worms, crushed chocolate cookies or peanut butter cups, chocolate or strawberry syrup, heck, why not both? whipped cream, cherry…You get the idea, this is the part you unleash your creativity and imagination and make this ice cream cake with your flare.

 

Tools:

1 bread loaf pan, or tin foil loaf pan

Plastic wrap

serrated knife – this will make a HUGE difference cutting the sponge cake

 

Method:

Line the bread loaf with plastic wrap, leave plenty on both sides of the pan, so at the end of the process, you can fold the plastic over the top of the ice cream cake. This step is crucial, it keeps the ice cream cake isolated from the rest of the freezer items.

Slightly soften the store-bought ice cream. Tip, if the ice cream tub is too frozen, stick it in the microwave for 5 seconds, add a few more seconds if needed. Works like magic.

Unwrap the store-bought sponge cake from packaging, lay it sideways on your cutting board. Use the serrated knife to slice the sponge cake into three equal thickness slices. Be careful don’t crush your cake. Put the bottom slice in the loaf pan, just on top of the plastic wrap. Push it down snugly. Take first flavored ice cream, use a large spoon, or ice cream scoop, scoop about 3 large balls and line them onto the bottom layer of sponge cake. Use the back of the spoon to gently even out the ice cream. Top it with surprises.

Layer the middle sponge cake on top of the ice cream and surprises. Push it down gently. Repeat with the ice cream, same flavor or different, top with surprises again. Layer the top of the sponge cake on top. Top with ice cream. Repeat with topping or surprises.

Fold the over-hang plastic wrap from both sides to cover ice cream with toppings. Stick the whole thing into your freezer for a couple of hours before serving, so the softened ice cream has a chance to set again.

When ready to serve, take out the whole loaf pan from freezer. Unfold the plastic wrap from the top, use them as a handle to lift the cake out of the loaf pan – SMART! I know! 😀

Slice up the cake about 1 inch thick, or 2 inches, however you like. lay the cake sideways on a serving plate. Drizzle chocolate syrup or strawberry syrup, or whipped cream, stick a cherry on top – Again, let your imagination and taste buds take control and watch those happy faces!