Danielle's Homemade Products....Homemade Coffee Creamer

Well....I realize it has been a long time since I did a post...I apologize everyone life has just gotten away from me

But I have seen a lot of posts about making homemade liquid coffee creamer and I thought about it. I am a big fan of liquid creamer, especially flavored creamer, but I never took the time to look at the ingredients list. Oh my goodness...most of the ingredient list I couldn't pronounce. That is not cool with me. That is one of the reasons I started making my own lotion, soap, and lip balms originally because I didn't like all the additional chemicals on my body. Well...wake up call. It made me aware of what chemicals I was putting in my body.

So I thought I would share this homemade liquid coffee creamer with everyone. This creamer tastes delicious, can be made in many different flavors, and has only three ingredients. Yes, I did say three ingredients...ready?



Here are your ingredients:

Milk
Sweetened Condensed Milk
Flavored Coffee Syrup...Flavor of choice

I kept my old creamer bottle and my homemade creamer fills the container perfectly. I washed this out and removed the sticker before starting on my homemade creamer, but any container will work.

Remove the cap from the creamer bottle, this makes it easier to add the ingredients into the bottle.



Measure out 2 cups of milk and add it to your bottle. I used 2% milk because that is what I buy. Use whatever type of milk you buy whether that is almond milk, whole milk, or skim. It will taste great with any of them.



Add one full can of sweetened condensed milk. I poured this into my measuring cup just to make it easier to add to my container.



Then add 1/3 of a cup of your flavored syrup. I used hazelnut here and my measuring cup doesn't have a 1/3 cup measure so I had to eye ball it. Add this to taste though if you like it a little less sweet, don't use as much, if you like it sweeter, then add a little more. You don't have to stick to one flavor either. You can add part caramel and some chocolate, or even cinnamon and add some vanilla. If your sweetener is sugar free, you can also add a bit of vanilla extract to counter the artificial sweetener taste.



Once everything was added to my container, I gave it a quick shake to mix everything together. I have been enjoying my homemade hazelnut creamer in my coffee for the last couple of days now and it is delicious. Make sure to keep it in the fridge so that it doesn't go bad with the milk in it.

Enjoy!

Comment below with your favorite flavors or flavor combinations.

Danielle's Homemade Products....Norway Gardens

I love learning new things, I love learning in general.

For the last week, I have been working part time at the most gorgeous place I have seen in a while. The atmosphere is amazing and relaxing.

When you pull up, you are welcomed by nature.



After you park, there is so much to see. The colors pop all around and invite you to explore.



The center building is also a little gift shop that has the small country store feel. The displays draw the eye.



After visiting the gift shop, which also carries Yankee Candles (sorry, no picture of that lol...and sorry for the finger in the edge of the first greenhouse picture, I just got so excited lol), there are so many areas to explore outside. There are 3 green houses on the property where workers start the process of growing the flowers, herbs, and veggies they offer for sale. There is also a nice selection of large trees, rose bushes, and other ground coverings.



Inside the green houses is an abundance of color, plant life, amazing smells, and gorgeous colors.



The character of the place is unmistakeable. While walking around taking pictures, I ran into a few friends. The resident feline is Buttercup and the resident guard dog is Daisy. Buttercup wanders around the grounds protecting the plants from raiding cats and other undesirables. Daisy helps watch over the floral department and the gift shop asking for friendly head scratches from guests who enter.



After a cold sap, most of the lovely plants were moved inside the greenhouses, but the grounds are still beautiful and relaxing. Some of the pictures with the flowers out were taken before the cold sap that happened mid week and some were taken afterward, but the grounds are still too gorgeous not to share.



Not only does the ambiance help you to create the beautiful garden of your dreams, there is also a section that handles bouquets, special occasions (like prom), wedding flowers, and funeral displays. The floral department offers both silk and fresh flower arrangements. Here are a few examples of the lovely creations my boss created this week (this is the area I am working in and loving it).



So the next time you are in the Monticello, Indiana area...come visit us and enjoy the peaceful and relaxing atmosphere while getting all your landscaping and flower needs.

Norway Gardens
308 W Walleston Ave
Monticello, IN
574-583-3811

Come see us or call us today.

Danielle's Homemade Products.....Homemade Ice Cream

This house just loves ice cream...but ice cream addictions like ours gets pricy after a while....so I had to find a way to make ice cream a treat, less expensive, and one that tastes amazing...well success is here

This recipe is very simple, has 2 basic ingredients and then any flavorings or additions you wish to add, and does NOT require an ice cream maker.

Here is the base recipe:

1 pint of whipping cream
1 can of sweetened condensed milk

Yes that is it...anything else you add is about flavor and additions

Start with the pint of whipping cream, I used a stand mixer but you can also use an electric mixer.

Pour the entire container into your bowl of your mixer.



This is so simple that even the little ones can help...here is my helper today. She did the majority of the work while I supervised, opened the necessary items, and told her what to put in and when.



Then whip it until stiff peaks form.



This is what stiff peaks should look like...the peak is stiff and retains it shape when the mixer head is picked up. I knew I needed to take it just a little further so I continued to mix it for about a minute after wards until it looked like this...



Don't forget to scrape down your work bowl every once in a while to get the bottom since some mixers tend to miss this area.



I always remove the attachment before doing this to prevent me (or my daughter) from getting the mixture all over your hands when you are trying to get around it.

Then I switched to my paddle attachment and we poured in the sweetened condensed milk and mixed just enough to incorporate. If you are using an electric mixer, you may want to use a spatula to fold this into the whipped cream. Do this gently so that you don't lose the fluffiness from whipping the cream.



Once the sweetened condensed milk is incorporated, now it is time to flavor your ice cream base. Here we added chocolate syrup and chocolate chips. We added about 2 tablespoons of the syrup and then I dumped in the half bag of chips we had.



I stirred the chocolate syrup in first, just until incorporated, then stirred the chocolate chips in. Stir only a few times when adding in chips to keep the beaters from tearing apart your chocolate chips. From here, I poured/spooned the mixture into a container that has a lid.



Then cover the container and put it in the freezer. If you like soft serve, check it after about 4 hours, if you like your ice cream firm, then wait at least 6. I put mine in my deep freezer, but I put it in the basket of the deep freezer so it wasn't touching any other frozen item so even after over 12 hours in the freezer, our ice cream was still on the soft side.



Let me just say that describing the ice cream was not easy. It is very rich, creamy, and tastes amazing. My daughter said we should make this all the time, though I admit that it was so rich neither of us could finish the two scoops we each had in our bowls. I did squirt extra syrup in the mixture so that with the dark chocolate chips made it super chocolatey (is that a word?) and the rich, full, flavor told me I could of used just the 2 tablespoons and that would of been fine.

Now the joys of this mixture is easy to explain. It is yours, the flavors are yours, and the flavors are customizable (just like my products, lol, sorry couldn't resist). The flavor combinations or choices are endless. Here are some examples:

any flavored liquid creamer
peanut butter & stir in chopped up pieces of peanut butter cups
Bailey's Irish Cream
any flavored coffee syrup (example caramel, then swirl in caramel ice cream topping)
any syrup flavoring for milk (example, chocolate or strawberry syrup)
extracts
candy pieces

The fun part is the flavor options are endless based on your preference. I would stick with keeping the liquid flavorings to about 2 tablespoons (or it can be too rich and sweet, like ours was by a bit), and then gently stir in what ever solid additions you want in. If you are using extracts, you may want to stick with about a teaspoon of that (this you may have to play with and test out since I didn't add any extracts to mine, but they tend to be strong when added to food items, think cookies since only a small amount is needed to add flavor).

Happy ice cream making...don't forget to let me know how your ice cream turned out along with what your favorite flavors were.