Featured Recipe: Sinfully Rich Vanilla Bean Ice Cream		Did you know that...?		Where in the world?

Featured Recipe: Sinfully Rich Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

This is the real thing: real vanilla beans and real heavy cream reminiscent of old-time creamery blends. This is better than any store-bought premium brand—and it’s sugar-free. Here’s a tip: make your ice cream base the day before and refrigerate it overnight. The colder it is when you get ready to freeze, the better it will turn out. Ingredients: 1 cup whole organic milk 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped ½ cup Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Blue Agave nectar Pinch of sea salt 2 large free-range egg yolks 2 cups heavy organic cream   Have a large bowl of ice water ready. Place the milk in a small saucepan with the vanilla bean, vanilla seeds, agave nectar, and salt. Heat over low heat until the mixture is hot. Lightly beat the egg yolks in a bowl. Add ¼ cup of the hot milk and whisk. Pour the egg mixture into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly until it starts to thicken, about 10 minutes.   Remove from the heat and place the saucepan in a bowl of ice water. Continue stirring to cool down the mixture. When the mixture is only slightly warm, stir in the cream. Remove the vanilla bean and discard. Cover and chill in the refrigerator until cold—several hours or overnight is best. Pour the mixture through a strainer into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Makes 1 quart. Ania's tips: Be creative. During the last 5 minutes of freezing, add about ½ cup of your favorite ice cream mixers--toasted nuts, grain-sweetened chocolate chips, chopped dried fruit, crumbled cookies or brownies (made with agave, of course). Recipe courtesy of Ania Catalano from her new cookbook, Baking With Agave Nectar (Celestial Arts/Ten Speed Press, 2008), reprinted with the publisher's permission.  From the Sugar Club: Make it a float! Drop a scoop of Blue Agave-sweetened ice cream into a tall glass and top with Katherine Clapner's Homemade Root Beer (made with Organic Zero). While it's not necessarily low-cal, it is low glycemic--and, oh, so delicious!

Did you know ? (Fun facts about sweeteners)

Mani Niall's delicious Mango Pineapple Sorbet Mijito recipe features Wholesome's Organic Blue Agave in a light, refreshing sorbet  Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Blue Agave nectars are the perfect sweetener for smooth-textured sorbets and ice cream recipes? Wholesome's Blue Agave nectars are a combination of naturally occurring common sugars: they are mostly fructose with a small percentage of glucose. Fructose not only causes the nectar to metabolize slowly, it reduces the nectar's ability to crystallize. When our Blue Agave nectar is used to sweeten sorbet or ice cream, the frozen treat will thicken nicely and hold great body, but it will not develop large ice crystals.  Though there are no hard, fast rules about substituting Blue Agave nectars for granulated sugar, we recommend using 75% as much agave as you normally would sugar, and reducing other liquids in the recipe by as much as one-third.(And when baking, lower the temperature by about 25°F and add a few minutes to the timer.)   Interested in experimenting? We'll be happy to send you a coupon for $1 off the purchase price of Wholesome's Organic Blue or Raw Blue Agave nectar; just drop a note to info@OrganicSugars.biz, note "Agave coupon" in the subject line, and include your name and mailing address. We'll get a coupon right out in the mail.

Where in the world are they now?

It's been a while, but we're back with our wildly popular "Where in the World" segment. Where in the world are these intrepid souls? Joo Hee Chung and Marjorie Duyongco are responsible for sourcing and assuring the quality of our new products. They travel far and wide in search of the best Fair Trade CertifiedTM, organic and natural sweeteners in the world. Where do you think they are now? HINTS: They're visiting an ancient site built by an ancient people. The builders' descendents still live and work near their ancestor's temples, carrying on their ancestor's traditions (including harvesting an unrefined sweetener with a history thousands of years old). For a Wholesome Sweeteners gift basket, please you tell us where you think Joo Hee and Marjorie are and what new product they might be working on. It's easy: Please send an email to info@OrganicSugars.biz. Be sure to include your name, the product, the general location of this temple (and for extra credit--tell us, in broad terms, who built it and the site's name--it's a big tourism attraction!) and please remember to write in the subject line: "Where in the World." The deadline is 5:00pm, PT, May 30, 2008. Three entries will be randomly selected from among the correct submissions. We look forward to hearing from you!