"martha stewart living" news and stories

I've never made ice cream. It's one of those foods that I think it's unnecessary to make because what you can buy in the store is just as good (if not better) than what you could make at home. I feel the same way about pasta.

But I was reading one of Andy Rooney's books (he's one of my favorite writers) and he makes ice cream a lot. He has a very simple recipe, and it doesn't include eggs at all. He says that if you add eggs, it's not ice cream, it's custard. He was on Martha Stewart's show one time, making ice cream, and she agreed that adding eggs was a bad idea. But when she was on CBS a while later, she made ice cream, and she added eggs!

So I'm curious: who's right in this? Is ice cream better with no eggs? Do eggs make it richer in some way, or just turn it into something else?

Last week, our Cooking Live series focused on a savory stew. This week, I'm turning over to the sweet side with a classic breakfast favorite: coffee cake. If you're not familiar with coffee cake, it gets its name because it is designed to be served with coffee or tea, as part of a mid-morning or mid-afternoon meal, not for dessert. This coffee cake is a Martha Stewart Living recipe that is brimming with streusel. In fact, it has more streusel than batter, though the batter expands to a respectable amount once the cake has baked.

The recipe that inspired this "episode" is Cardamom Streusel Coffee Cake, which won me over with its delicious appearance. It also gives me a good opportunity to take my own Martha Challenge, and see if I have better luck with her (and her publication's) recipes than some others have. I guarantee that a few liberties will be taken with this recipe, so stay tuned for the ingredients and my version of the recipe later in the week, with a full series of posts detailing the method, mixing, baking and eating of the cake on Friday.