Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Recipe: Mango

2 mangoes
1 tbsp lime juice
1/2 cup sugar
300ml milk
300 ml cream
2 eggs

You're gonna need a blender or food processor for this one. Puree the mango, lime juice and half the sugar together. I meant to simmer the mango pieces with the sugar first, but forgot. It still turned out fine. Use the eggs, milk and the rest of the sugar to make le custarde. Let it cool, then mix in the pureed fruit and the cream. Put it in the ice cream maker and the rest of this story writes itself...

Remarks: Great, but personally I fell it was little too creamy. May have been better to go gelato-style on this one and only use milk for the dairy element. That's a personal preference though, this is still damn good. If you could take the Australian summer and make it into a frozen dessert, then this would be it. Just remember to remove the race riots first, they can leave a bad taste in the mouth...

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Recipe: Christmas Pudding

~200g Mixed dried fruit (orange peel, lemon peel, raisins, sultanas, preserved ginger, those weird glace cherries etc etc )
1.5 tsps mixed spice
6tbsp sherry
75g almonds
4 eggs
80g brown sugar
40g ordinary white sugar
400ml milk
300ml cream

You gotta plan ahead a bit for this one - soak the dried fruit in the sherry, mixed with about half the spice. Leave for a couple of days so it gets nice and boozey.

Make the custard, then mix in the cream and the rest of the spices. Put it in the machine, and add the fruit and nuts when it starts to thicken. I drained off the rest of the sherry before adding the fruit in, as too much booze can change the freezing point of the mix...

Remarks: Great! Fills you full of yuletide cheer! A possible alternative would be to substitute some of the sugar for melted chocolate....next year friends, next year...

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Recipe: Wasabi

It's big in Japan, apparently.

300ml milk
300ml cream
3 eggs
1tsp vanilla essence
~120g sugar
1 3/4 tsp wasabi paste

Make vanilla custard, stir in the wasabi, dissolved in the minutest amount of water.

Verdict: Hmm...well...not at all bad, though definitely not for everyone. The trial group was divided down the middle as to whether this was awesome or awful. One chap complained of a "meaty" flavour, though this appeared to have diminished after further freezing (the more frozen ice cream is, the more subdued the flavour is...). The spicy aftertaste is very pleasant, but I have a feeling that this may not be making up part of Ice Cream Sunday's greatest hits of 2005...

Monday, November 28, 2005

Recipe: Chocolate chip cookie dough

The Mitch and James's take on an old favorite from the country that brought you the Internet, the A-Bomb and Texas...

Make a vanilla base using the same recipe as Mint, but using about 2/3 of the sugar (and minus the mint leaves, of course). Stick it in the machine and when it starts to firm up, add little balls of uncooked cookie dough to the mix. We used "Auntie kaths" brand choc-chip. And that's it!

Verdict: Very rich. Tasty though. God bless America!

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Recipe: Mint

400ml milk
400ml cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
5 eggs
125g sugar
About 80g fresh mint leaves, finely chopped (one bunch from Coles)

Make the custard. Cool to room temperature. Add the cream and mint. Mix. Chill in the fridge if you have time, then stick it in the ol' machine. Easy!

Remarks: Seriously, this is the best flavour to date. Can't fault it!

Recipe: Hazelnut Gelato

120g Hazelnuts
120g sugar
~750ml milk
1 vanilla bean/vanilla essence
6 egg yolks

Spread the hazelnuts on a bit of foil and grill for a while until the skins come off easily. Take off as much of them as yo ucan, then grind finely in a blender with 30g of the sugar.

Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla bean and add to the milk while heating. Do the custard thing with the eggs milk and the rest of the sugar. Mix in the nuts, chill then put it in the machine.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Recipe: Lavender

1/4 cup of water
2 tbsp culinary lavender
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons honey
2 cups cream
1 cup milk
5 egg yolks

Simmer water and lavender for a minute or two until reduced by half. Add sugar, dissolve and simmer a few minutes to thicken syrup. Stir in the honey and set aside.

Custardise the milk and eggs, then stir in the lavender syrup. Cool, then strain out the lavender. Stick it in the machine.

Verdict: Sophisticated!

Recipe: Black Pepper

Courtesy of The Age - Good Weekend magazine 17/11/05

500ml Milk
6 egg yolks
150g caster sugar
500ml cream
2 tsp freshl cracked black pepper
pinch of salt(!)

Make the custard with milk, eggs and sugar. At this point The Age recommends passing the mixture through a sieve, but we didn't. Let it cool then mix in the cream pepper and salt, then let the machine do it's thing...

It's crazy but it works....

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Recipe: Cherry Ripe (tm)

500ml cream
500ml milk
3 Eggs
1 tsp vanilla
100g sugar
1 jar Greenland seeded cherries in syrup
~125g dark chocolate, chopped roughly
shredded coconut

I boiled the cherries and coconut with some extra sugar for a while to try and reduce the syrup to a more sticky consistency, and remove some of the tartness. After making the ice cream and adding the chocolate, the cooled cherry mixture was added as a swirl...nice!

NOTES: This recipe actually makes too much volume, the stuff was spewing out the top of the Krups like a creamy Vesuvius. Also, the jar of "seeded" cherries contained about 4 seeds. All in all another raging success, though....

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Recipe: Triple Ginger Madness

600ml Milk
300 Ml cream
3 eggs
~75g sugar
3 tbsp buderim ginger spread
glace ginger, chopped
gingernut biscuits, crushed
1tsp vanilla

Dissolve the ginger spread in the hot milk before doing the egg and sugar thing. Add the glace ginger and biscuits once the mixture starts thickening in the machine.

NOTES:
- The ginger spread was not very strong, so the icecream itself did not have a very strong ginger flavour. Could try putting in more spread and leave out the sugar altogether? The chopped preserved ginger more than made up for it though...
- Once again, this didn't completely set. Too much sugar? Too much volume in the machine?? ARRGH!

Monday, October 03, 2005

Recipe: Chaice-cream

600ml Milk
2 Eggs
5 chai tea bags
honey to taste
300 ml cream
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Brew the tea in the hot milk, then add honey, eggs and do the custard thing.

Notes:
  • Pretty good, but perhaps a little too strong on the tea flavour. Could try just using the chai spices and no (or at least less) actual tea.
  • Also - the custard went kind of weird and lumpy. This might be due to some sort of reaction with the tea, or possibly I just overcooked it? Turned out OK in the end though...
  • Once again, this had some problems solidifying in the machine. After an hour in the krups, it was still kind of soft. Bah!

Monday, September 26, 2005

Recipe: Dark chocolate and pistachio

~500ml full cream milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
~100g sugar
~200g dark chocolate, melted
(All of the above go into the custard step)
300ml cream
pistachios, kind of crushed.

Comment: Ace! Although, it did not set very well - possibly due to the double hit of sugar and chocolate?