Home-Made Ice-Cream in Se7en Steps…

If you have friends over for pizza and Eton Mess on a Saturday evening… then you are going to be left with a significant number of egg yolks. I could make Creme Brulee and really impress the father person. Or I could really impress the whole family making classic ice-cream from egg custard.

This is my standard If you don’t know what you are doing have a look here Recipe book… and it has a fabulous section on ice-cream and sorbets in general. And all about using an ice-cream churn and adding bit and pieces to make these desserts even more decadent.

And let’s just talk about the most important ingredient: That would be cream… it is not ice-milk, or ice-anything else – it is ice-cream. So you are going to need cream and let’s just be honest here… you are going to need a heap of cream.

So Let’s Meet The Players:

For the egg custard:

• 6 – egg yolks (or whatever is left over from the meringues)
• 1/2 a cup of castor sugar
• 2 cups of cream
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

and

• 2 more cups of cream to turn the custard into ice-cream.

And Let’s Play The Game:

Step 1: Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until they become thick and light.

Step 2: Heat the cream, and pop the vanilla essence into it, until just before it boils.

Step 3: Stir the warm cream into egg and sugar mixture.

Step 4: Return the custard to the pot and stir until it thickens and covers the spoon. Cool the custard.

Step 5: Whisk the other two cups of cream until just before it is stiff. Stir it through the custard.

Step 6: Set the ice-cream machine up.

Get the paddle stirring and pop the ice-cream mixture into the ice-cream machine.

You know your ice-cream is ready it is when it becomes thick and semi-frozen. And this is the hardest part… it is very tempting to pour it into glasses and have some magnificent double-thick milk-shakes!!! But persevere and pop it into the freezer. I usually freeze it overnight.

Step 7: Finally, when at home – do what I discovered in Rome – serve it con crema, a dash of cream makes all the work worthwhile! And this is clearly where the expression: In for a penny, in for a pound was first used.

And you are done! Excuse the dripping cones – but we are talking the very middle of summer here and lots of eager little hoods distracting me!

Enjoy it!