My roommate's girlfriend makes a lot of chocolate desserts that he brings home to share with me. She made some really good brownies which inspired me to return the favor. However, I wanted to make it a little weirder, so I used Serious Eats' ginger spice brownies recipe. This is a heavily spiced dessert akin to gingerbread. The brownies are great with a complex flavor, but they ended up being cakier than I prefer. The recipe calls for the cake to register at 210°F, which may be the culprit, or perhaps too much flour.

Since it includes such intense flavors, I thought it would be nice to pair it with something fatty to balance it. I took the opportunity to try Adam Ragusea's 2 Bowl Ice Cream method.

I had a few problems with this method. While I did incorporate a significant amount of air, I never got to stiff peaks while whipping the ice cream base. I think that may be because I added too much milk, throwing off the fat to water ratio. The base didn't deflate much on the second mixing either. I also accidentally added peppermint extract instead of vanilla, so I had to pivot to a mint chocolate chip ice cream. Luckily, the ginger spice brownies still go well with mint. I ended up with 2 and a half quarts which was way more than I expected (probably due to the retained air).