Most Oktoberfest menus are pretty predictable — oceans of beer, mountains of sausage, sauerkraut, and maybe freshly baked pretzels.

Santa Cruz, though, takes pride in leaning off-center.  The music at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery’s fifth annual Sausagefest last weekend was country.  Frauleins sported elaborate tattoos with their flirty barmaid drindls.  And the popular Penny Ice Creamery served beer ice cream.

There weren’t a lot of takers  for the Devout Stout-flavored ice cream early in the evening, but I couldn’t resist.  A scoop in a pint jar with a little of the same beer was the best thing I had all night.  It was thick, creamy and lightly sweet with flavors of coffee, caramel and a pleasantly bitter hint of burnt sugar.  Even before I left, I knew I was going to have to try to make it at home.

It turns out that beer ice cream isn’t that rare.  Mentions can be found all over the Internet.  Most of the recipes don’t sound very appealing, however.  Some don’t bother to cook the eggs.  Others add molasses or chocolate to round out the beer flavors.

I decided to riff off a basic French-style vanilla ice cream.  First, I reduced some good dark beer with a little brown sugar to make a syrup and cook off most of the alcohol.  Then I substituted the beer syrup for some of the cream in the formula.  It turned out even better than I hoped.

The secret to good beer ice cream, of course, is good beer.  A can of Bud just won’t do. But any well-crafted stout or porter is worth a try.

The artisan Devout Stout is a wonderful, dark and deeply flavored brew.  I would have used it if we could have found any in all the usual places.  When we didn’t, I turned to that reliable supermarket standby, Guiness Extra Stout, for the first batch.

It was very nice although a little rough around the edges.  If I hadn’t tasted the Devout Stout ice cream, I would have declared it a winner.

Still, I knew the ice cream could be better.  So I snagged some Black Butte Porter, my husband’s favorite, for the next try.  Smoother and more nuanced, it was just right.

The only thing better than this ice cream is a float made with the same beer.  Give it a try. You’ll be amazed.

The way this summer has gone, it looked like there never was going to be a good time to try out my idea for adult versions of the commercial (and trademarked) Popsicle.  But the weather seems to have settled into a nice run of warm days at last and I’ve been experimenting with making ice pops with a kick.

These frozen bars are milder versions of a couple of refreshing summer cocktails made with fresh juice.  It took a little tweaking to get the flavor right while reducing the alcohol enough that the pops would freeze.  They’re supposed to be fun, not seriously intoxicating, anyway.

For my models, I drew on Lynchburg Lemonade, named after the Kentucky home of the Jack Daniels distillery, and a generic peach daiquiri recipe.  I substituted lemon juice and homemade simple syrup for sour mix in the potent lemonade recipe and stuck to fresh peaches rather than “peach-flavored” liqueurs in the daiquiri.

The results are fresh tasting and fruity—with just enough liquor to make the flavors more interesting.

These are easy to whirl together in the blender and freeze in the ice pops molds readily available in most cookware stores these days.  Let them freeze overnight and you’re ready for an impromptu party, complete with frozen drinks.

I’d been looking for a great new use for cocoa ever since Valrhona sent me some of its products for review late this summer.  The bars of solid chocolate from France are my first choice for baking and I always try to pick up a couple while shopping at Trader Joe’s just to keep my pantry stocked. But I generally think of cocoa powder, no matter the label, as a pale substitute for the real thing, dry and dusty rather than rich and silky.

Then I tasted a fabulous chocolate sorbet from SCREAM Sorbet at the Wednesday farmers market and inspiration struck.  Melted chocolate alone wouldn’t deliver that intense taste.  I needed a dark and dusky cocoa with an intoxicating aroma for an extra layer of flavor.  What better use for that stash of Valrhona?

The recipe for this sorbet began, as most good frozen desserts seem to, with David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop.” The cookbook author and former Chez Panisse pastry chef, now living in Paris, is a wizard with an ice cream machine.  To make his basic chocolate sorbet recipe my own, I added a sparkling citrus note from grated orange rind and a little kick from a couple of tablespoons of Grand Marnier.  The results were stunning.   Without an ounce of milk or cream, it was as thick and satiny as chocolate mousse, with an intensity unmatched by most commercial products.

This is a super simple recipe.  All you need is an ice cream maker and they’re not such a big splurge anymore.  I use an inexpensive Cuisinart with a cannister that I store in the freezer between uses.

Don’t worry if you don’t have Valrhona cocoa, as good as it is.  Although it’s worthwhile to search for it in grocery stores or order it online, it’s definitely a luxury item.   I’ve found only the most upscale markets carry it, including Draeger’s on the Peninsula.   Alternatively, use the best-tasting cocoa you can afford because it makes so much difference in the dish.

Just be sure your cocoa is Dutch processed, meaning it’s been treated with an alkaline solution to partially neutralize acid, which also makes it easier to dissolve in liquids.  Most European chocolates have been Dutched, but many American cocoas, Scharffen Berger among them, have not.

Melted bittersweet chocolate contributes thickness to this sorbet.  It should be top quality, too.  I used the 61 percent cacao “le noir” from Valrhona.

The only real trick here is to remember to give yourself enough time to chill the mixture well before freezing.  I was in a rush and didn’t leave my batch in the refrigerator quite long enough, so it never thoroughly froze in the ice cream maker.  No worries.  I just transferred the slush to a storage container and let it finish up in the freezer.

It was terrific by any measure.

Juicy, sweet, dribble-down-your-chin peaches are one of the real treats of summer.

Because there are dozens of varieties out there, each ripening at a different time, the season seems to stretch on forever.  By mid-July I’m usually ready to do something more with this delightful fruit than merely stand over the sink, eating it out of hand.  Still, I want to keep it simple to preserve the bright, sun-kissed taste.

Peaches and ice cream are a classic combo and this year I’m serving grilled peaches with a spicy, ginger ice cream.  Grilling caramelizes the surface of the fruit and concentrates the flavor.  Ginger serves as a dramatic counterpoint.  Pair the hot fruit with the chilly ice cream and you have an ideal dessert for these midsummer evenings when it’s really too hot to turn on an oven.

This is not a dessert for those white-fleshed sugar bombs that pass as peaches.  This recipe needs tangy yellow peaches with an undercurrent of acid.  The trick here is to find peaches that are truly ripe.  I only buy them at farmers markets, where growers are usually happy to give you a taste before you buy.

Your nose will tell you if a peach is going to taste good, but you also should also check the background color. In “How to Pick a Peach” (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), LA Times food writer Russ Parsons warns that the pretty red blush on a peach’s cheek is merely a genetic trait and not an indicator of ripeness.  He recommends looking for an almost orange background color as a sign that the fruit was allowed to mature on the tree.

Don’t worry, though, if your peaches are still too hard.  Let them sit on the counter for a couple of days and they’ll continue to ripen and soften.  Grilling also will bring out more flavor.

The ice cream comes from Su-Mei Yu’s inspiring cookbook, “Asian Grilling” (William Morrow, 2002).  I was drawn by its combination of fresh, chopped ginger and minced candied ginger with luxurious cream.  The results are amazing, with a velvet texture and a depth of ginger flavor that enlivens the palate.

It’s a great foil for warm, tangy peaches.  Plus, it’s so good by itself that I’m sure to continue making it long after peach season is over.

The gray, rainy days of February bring at least one consolation, these beautiful, juicy blood oranges in the market. Citrus is extraordinarily plentiful this season — a friend’s Meyer lemon tree is in overdrive — but it ‘s blood oranges that captivate me.

Although their California season extends for several months in the dead of winter, we have to catch them when we can in our local supermarket. Their rind is thick and often marked with a burgundy blush. Slice them open and there’s no question how they got their name. At it’s best, the flesh is a deep red, glistening like a garnet.

On looks alone, these descendants of Sicilian orchards stand out in the market among the crates of navel, Valencia and mandarin citrus so abundant at this time of year. Yet it’s their sweet, tangy flavor, with undertones of young red wine, that brings me back.

Blood oranges are wonderful eaten straight out of hand, slowly peeling off the segments one at a time. They’re gorgeous in salads or garnishing a dessert and I just knew they would make a fabulous sorbet.

The great thing about sorbet is it’s so easy to make, especially if you have an ice cream machine. Mine is a low end Cuisinart with a work bowl that I leave in the freezer between uses. You could spend much more, of course. On the other hand, you could just chill your mixture to a stiff slush in the freezer and run it through the food processor or blender to get the right texture.

I use the term sorbet advisedly here on the authority of ice cream guru David Lebovitz, author of “The Perfect Scoop” (Ten Speed Press, 2007). I’ve added yogurt to the mix, which might send it into the sherbet category. David notes, though, that he’s seen even professionals use the term interchangeably. And the texture and flavor say “sorbet” to me.

A little juice, a little yogurt, a little zest, some superfine sugar and a splash of Cointreau went into the blender and whirled around. I stashed the blender jar in the fridge to cool and, a couple of hours later, poured the mixture into the spinning ice cream maker to freeze. That was all.

The flavor, was amazing — bright and lively with a bit of body from the yogurt and enough zing from the zest to cut through a gloomy winter day . What could be more welcome in the middle of February?

Keitt mango from California

I didn’t grow up eating mangoes. They may be one of the most popular fruits in the world, but the produce available at the military commissaries where my mom usually shopped didn’t get much more exotic than oranges and bananas.

Not until I began eating my way through the myriad Indian restaurants in Silicon Valley did I discover the joys of this luscious tropical fruit. Mango lassi, a cool concoction of pureed mango and yogurt, quickly became my favorite beverage to accompany searing hot curries and spicy samosas. Then I began encountering it everywhere — in salsas, baked goods and a friend’s signature black bean salad.

Still, I didn’t cook with mangoes that often. I didn’t know how to choose well and the prospect of cutting one up was daunting. By the time I had cut out the massive central pit, I had a big mess on my hands and not much usable flesh to show for all the effort.

That changed when an editor urged me to test drive the mango splitter from OXO. It was a revelation. With one stroke, the mango was split vertically into two halves with the pit standing free. There was very little waste and I began thinking of the mango as an ingredient I might cook with rather than something to order only at a restaurant.

Although the season for most imported mangoes is in spring and summer, California’s mango crop is now at its peak. The folks at Purity.Organic sent me a couple of their big, juicy Keitt mangoes from the Coachella Valley to taste and I was so impressed I went out to buy more at Whole Foods despite their high price — $3.99 each for fruit weighing 1½-2 pounds.

The flesh of these mangoes is sweet and succulent with the silky texture of velvet and a bright, tropical flavor hinting of pineapple. Not only are they organic, they also have spent more time ripening on the trees, and have not been treated with radiation or heat like most imported mangoes. Their short season runs September-October.

Unlike most mangoes, the Keitts are still green when ripe. Their skin may yellow a bit but they don’t get the characteristic blush of many mangoes that are ready to eat. They do begin to feel a little soft when handled and there’s a whisper of fruit when you sniff the stem end. When you slice them open, the dripping flesh ranges from dark yellow to a brilliant orange.

After eating my fill of fresh fruit, I could think of no better use for this marvelous fruit than a frozen variation on lassi. It’s simple to make with an inexpensive home ice cream machine. (Mine is a Cuisinart with a work bowl I stash in the freezer between uses.) Just whirl the few ingredients in a blender, chill the mixture, and freeze. Although whole fat yogurt would be better, the ubiquitous low-fat variety does fine. Just be sure it is not flavored or sweetened.