Ice Cream Flavours
Manuka Honey and Orange Blossom Ice Cream
As summer is coming on, we wanted to make a floral ice cream. I’ve also wanted to make ice cream with Manuka honey for a long time. This strong flavoured New Zealand honey comes from a plant used by the Maori for medicinal purposes. We decided to combine it with essence of orange blossom, and the result was delicious!
Blackberry and Apple Ice Cream
It’s wonderful heading into autumn, because it brings up a whole new interesting set of flavour possibilities. My last post was about blackberries, and yesterday I had occasion to wander around my back garden for the first time in ages.
There, on the little apple trees planted by my landlady, were the most beautiful and tasty apples.
It didn’t take much to put apple and blackberry together - those two fruits are made for each other, and I immediately went making ice cream…
If you have access to both fruits, here’s a recipe that yields a very cream dessert…
Irish Cream Liqueur Ice Cream
A great Irish ice cream flavour is Irish Cream Liqueur (we use Baileys), and we call it “Bó Bhán” (white cow) in Irish. It’s an easy ice cream flavour to make, and the alcohol in the recipe improves the consistency. This ice cream partners chocolate cake or fruit tarts perfectly. It is also
Strawberry and Sage Ice Cream
I promised a little while ago to post the strawberry and sage ice cream, which is pretty much sold out in the shops by this point, but anyway, here it is!
Ingredients:
- 1 cup Sugar
- 5 Egg Yolks
- 1 3/8 Cups Cream
- 1 1/8 Cups Milk
What to do:
- Make the strawberry and sage coulis
- Beat the sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow.
- Bring the milk to a simmer. Remove from the heat.
- Beat the milk into the eggs and sugar in a slow stream.
- Pour the mixture back into pan and place over low heat.
Stir until the custard thickens (around 60C).- Allow the custard to cool.
- Whip the cream until you have soft peaks. Do not over-whip!
- Fold in the custard and coulis.
- Freeze using a domestic ice cream machine, or cover and place in the freezer.
12 Servings
Note: To pasteurise the eggs, heat the custard to 73C and keep at that temperature for three minutes. Use a cooking thermometer, though, and keep stirring! If the custard goes any higher than 76C, the eggs will scramble. Immediately cover and place in the freezer until cool.
Vanilla Ice Cream
Vanilla ice cream is one of the most popular but at the same time most under-appreciated flavours. In our shops, people often order it apologetically, half expecting criticism at being unadventurous. However, if I visit an ice cream shop, I will almost always sample their vanilla. When you are making a strong flavour, perhaps you can cover up any inadequacies. With vanilla, however, it is either good or it is not, and you get the full flavour of the base ice cream. There’s no hiding.
Good vanilla ice cream is not only hard to make, it can also be very expensive if you use the real thing. We use four different natural vanillas in our ice cream to get the right balance - two types of bean, and two types of essence. Both of the essences are over €100 a litre - one is €160 a litre. It’s the most expensive ingredient we use.
When making vanilla at home, it’s not necessary to use four vanillas. The following recipe calls for a single vanilla bean. Sometimes it’s better not to over-complicate!
Single Bean Vanilla Ice Cream
Ingredients:
- 1 cup Sugar
- 5 Egg Yolks
- 1 3/8 Cups Cream
- 1 1/8 Cups Milk
- 1 Vanilla bean
- Beat the sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow.
- Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and put in a saucepan with the milk.
- Bring the milk to a simmer. Remove from the heat.
- Remove the vanilla bean.
- Beat the milk into the eggs and sugar in a slow stream.
- Pour the mixture back into pan, add the vanilla bean, and place over low heat.
- Stir until the custard thickens (around 60C).
- Remove the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds from it with a spoon or blunt knife. Stir the seeds into the custard, using a whisk to disperse them evenly.
- Allow the custard to cool.
- Mix in the cream, beating for one minute.
- Freeze using a domestic ice cream machine, or cover and place in the freezer.
6 Servings
Notes: 1. If you don’t have a vanilla bean, you can substitute with vanilla essence. It’s hard to say how much, since the essences vary so much. Mix it into the cool custard in small amounts until you have the right amount of flavour.
2. To pasteurise the eggs, heat the custard to 73C and keep at that temperature for three minutes. Use a cooking thermometer, though, and keep stirring! If the custard goes any higher than 76C, the eggs will scramble. Immediately cover and place in the freezer until cool.
Honey Chai Ice Cream
One of the best and most rewarding trips I’ve ever taken was to India. From the tea plantations in Darjeeling to the beaches of Goa to the Ganges and colours of Rajisthan, it’s an amazing country.
The eating was fantastic (as long as you do as they do and avoid meat) and the drink of choice, outside of Goa with it’s exotic fruit drinks, was chai. Served up in cans by chai wallahs (vendors) it was sweet (they use lots of condensed milk) and fragrant.
Feeling nostalgic for the warmth of India in this seemingly endless winter, I made a chai ice cream today, and decided to add a bit of honey for additional 
sweetness. I also tossed in some (but not too many) dark chocolate chips because I wanted some kick!
To the right is what the finished product looked like…
If you want to try it, the recipe is below. You’ll notice it’s almost identical to the recipe for Honey Lavender ice cream from a previous post.
Honey-Chai Ice Cream Honey-Chai Ice Cream Honey-Chai Ice Cream Honey-Chai Ice Cream
1 Cup (237ml) Sugar
5 Egg Yolks
1 1/8 Cups (266ml) Cream
1 1/8 Cups(266ml) Milk
6 Chai teabags
2 Cups (475ml) Water
1 tablespoons liquid honey
A handful of dark chocolate chips.
Yield: 6 Servings
1. Boil the chai in the water until the water has reduced to 1/10th of the volume.
2. Remove from the heat and strain. Stir in the honey.
3. Beat the sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow.
4. Bring the milk to a simmer.
5. Beat the milk into the eggs and sugar in a slow stream.
6. Pour the mixture back into pan and place over low heat. Stir until the custard thickens slightly (around 70C). Use a thermometer, as at 75C the eggs will scramble!
7. Allow the custard to cool.
8. Mix in the lavender/honey and chocolate chips.
9. Whip the cream.
10. Gently fold in the custard.
11. Freeze using a domestic ice cream machine, or cover and place in the freezer.
Notes: 1. I suggest you use a simple, liquid honey. Darker or more complex honeys will have a very strong flavour, so in that case use less!
2. If you can’t find chai in your supermarket, you’ll find it in the tea section of your health food shop. I used organic Clipper chai (see top photo).
