Home-made ice cream made from simple fresh ingredients far surpass anything found in stores. The advent of the home ice-dream maker ensures that delicious ice cream is a relatively simple process, yet provides a fantastic dessert. Here's one of my favourites with a fabulous chocolate sauce:
Ingredients:
185 g caster sugar plus 2 tablespoons
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
240 ml double cream
4 large egg yolks
pinch of salt
375 ml wholefat milk
1 tablespoon vanilla essence, or 1 vanilla pod
Firstly we will make the caramel. Use a heavy 2L saucepan and combine the caster sugar (185 g) with 2 tablespoons of water and the lemon juice. Heat over a medium high flame, stirring with a wooden spoon until the sugar dissolves. Stop stirring at this point and continue cooking until the syrup turns an amber colour. Just a note of caution, the sugar caramelises between 160 -180 C, so exercise extreme caution, it can cause serious burns.
Remove the pan from the heat, and very carefully pour 180ml of the double cream into the hot syrup, ensuring it does not splash. With a long-handled wooden spoon stir until smooth. Place back onto a medium heat and cook further until bubbles appear around the edges of the pan - no more than 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Now combine in a bowl the egg yolks, salt, the 2 tablespoons of sugar and the remaining 60 ml of double cream. Whisk until smooth and then pour in the milk and if using, the vanilla pod .
Add the above to the warm caramel and cook over a medium/low heat stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. This should take 4 - 6 minutes. Strain the custard through a sieve into a large bowl. If using vanilla essence, add now.
Cool in a larger bowl or perhaps the sink filled with cold water and ice cubes, if available, stirring occasionally until cool. Now take some cling film and cover with the cling film touching the surface of the custard to prevent a skin forming. Refrigerate for a minimum of 3 hours and up to 24 hours. Incidentally the flavour develops over a period of time, so a better ice cream is created if the custard is left overnight.
Pour the chilled custard into your ice-cream maker, and following manufacturers instructions make your ice cream. Alternatively place into a container, into the freezer and fork the mixture regularly to break up the ice crystals to create a smooth ice cream.
This ice-cream goes wonderfully with a chocolate sauce, recipe below:
Chocolate sauce
Ingredients:
185 g unsalted butter
60 g bitter, high quality chocolate
20 g unsweetened cocoa powder
250 g caster sugar
pinch of salt
250 ml double cream
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Using a double-boiler slowly let the chocolate and butter melt to a liquid consistency. Whilst the chocolate and butter are melting, mix the unsweetened cocoa, sugar and salt. When the chocolate and butter have melted, stir and add the sugar/cocoa mix and stir to combine well. Now add the double cream and bring the bowl to the boil in the double boiler. (ie turn the heat up high under the double boiler, until the water is boiling hard)
Once the sauce is at the boil, remove from the heat and allow to cool for a few minutes before stirring in the vanilla.
Allow the sauce to cool to room temperature before spooning over the delicious caramel ice cream. Any left over sauce will keep in the fridge for 3 days.
This is a great treat, and will thrill the most sophisticated of adult palettes whilst clearly being super popular with children.
Enjoy and make time and time again!
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