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Strawberry-lemon sorbet

13 May

Strawberry-lemon sorbet

Eating well is important to me, and I’m happy to make time to cook our meals from scratch. But whatever I make, the final dish has to justify the investment of time and money.

Chocolate babka? Absolutely worth the (not inconsiderable) effort.

A salad I recently made that had me individually grilling a heap of mandolined courgette slices for half an hour while the shrieking smoke alarm provided a sound track that matched my ever-darkening mood? Not so much…

Strawberry-lemon sorbet scores off the charts on the effort to result ratio. Five minutes’ work for a hot-pink, ice-cold, sweet-tart sorbet you’d be happy to eat any day of the year.

And there’s something about blitzing up the whole lemon that is deeply satisfying to me. Continue reading

Eggnog ice cream

29 Dec

Eggnog ice cream

Given that eggnog has always tasted like rum-laced melted ice cream to me, I’m surprised it took me so long to hit on the idea of eggnog ice cream.

I made a batch a couple of days before Christmas as an alternative dessert for people who don’t like Christmas pudding.

It turns out I don’t know those kind of people… My guests like their Christmas pudding topped with both brandy butter and a goodly scoop of eggnog ice cream.

The pudding and ice cream combo is such a winner, that I think we’ll forgo the brandy butter altogether next year.

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Mango ice cream

16 Oct

Mango ice cream
I’ve had a large tin of mango pulp taking up precious space in the pantry cupboard for ages now. It’s been so long, I can no longer remember my reason for purchasing it. I’m thinking maybe cocktails…?

The other day, it occurred to me that it would lend itself nicely to making mango ice cream. To my surprise, none of the recipes I found used tinned mango, so I decided to go it alone.

I kept things simple – just mango pulp, double cream, lime juice, salt and Malibu liqueur (another thing that’s been taking up valuable shelf space for the last ten years.)

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Peach-basil sorbet

12 Jul

Peach-basil sorbet

Peaches and basil both say “summer” to me – and in this peach-basil sorbet they can say it together…

I made this sorbet with those little flat white peaches that have been appearing in the shops the last few years. The lovely rosy colour was a pleasant surprise – the result of leaving the skins on the peaches when I puréed them. Continue reading

Chocolate-raspberry ice cream

18 Jun

chocolate-raspberry-icecream2

Move over lemon ice cream… there’s a new kid in town.

I made this chocolate-raspberry ice cream for the first time other day. It certainly won’t be the last – all four of us were completely wowed by it.

The recipe couldn’t have been easier. Four basic ingredients – cream, chocolate, sugar, raspberries. And being a Philadelphia-style ice cream, there was no messing about with egg yolks and custard. Continue reading

Rhubarb crumble ice cream

30 May

rhubarb-crumble-icecream

Rhubarb crumble ice cream is an inspired idea – tart rhubarb, silky sweet cream, nuggets of cakey crumble. It’s not the most visually seductive of ice creams, at least when made with the chunky green stalks of rhubarb from my garden patch. None of that delicate pink forced rhubarb for us.

 

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Frozen banana “ice cream”

23 Apr

Frozen banana

Frozen banana “ice cream” is a little bit of culinary magic – just sixty seconds in a food processor to transform frozen slices of banana into a smooth, silky dessert.

I first discovered it in David Cohlmeyer’s The Vegetarian Chef in my student days, and have been happily whipping up batches of the stuff ever since.  Continue reading

Vanilla ice cream

5 Mar

Vanilla ice cream
This is my go-to vanilla ice cream, and after lemon ice cream it’s the one we’re most likely to have in the freezer. I’ve made more complicated vanilla ice creams involving egg yolks and custard, ice baths and sieves, which produced delicious results. But in terms of time and effort needed to turn out a great vanilla ice cream, this recipe is hard to beat. Continue reading

Lime and Thai basil sorbet

31 Aug

Lime and Thai basil sorbet

I found this recipe for basil-lime sorbet in a magazine I was leafing through in the doctor’s waiting room. I thought it sounded interesting, and jotted it down. The first time I tried it, I didn’t much like it, but decided to try it again with Thai basil.

What a transformation… The liquorice-cinnamony Thai basil combines beautifully with the sweet lime syrup to produce a palate cleansing, mouth tingling, refreshing sorbet. I often serve it with strawberries, but blueberries also work really well. Continue reading

Lemon ice cream

31 Jul

Lemon ice cream

This lemon ice cream is a stunner. It’s unanimously our favourite ice cream around here – and that’s including chocolate. The salt is absolutely key to this dish – creating a perfect balance between sugary sweet and lemony sour.

I was given this recipe by a friend, after she served it at a dinner party, so have no idea who to credit for this marvellous creation. It’s delicious with fresh strawberries. Continue reading

Cherry sorbet

25 Jul

Cherry sorbet

At the supermarket yesterday, I saw a pack of twenty cherries on sale for £3.99. That’s 20p a cherry! Growing up in British Columbia, we ate delicious Okanagan produce all summer long – especially Bing cherries, peaches and tomatoes. My grandmother’s cherry tree produced so much fruit she could scarcely keep up with it, and she dried bucketfuls of cherries each year.

Stopped at the Iranian grocers on the way home and picked up two kilos of cherries for £7 – a much more reasonable price. We scoffed half of them straightaway, after which I made this cherry sorbet. The recipe comes from David Liebowitz’s cookbook, The Perfect Scoop. Continue reading

Strawberry ice cream

14 Jul

strawberry ice cream

This is what I feel like having for dinner tonight – but I’ll probably have some World Cup food leftovers first… I always make this ice cream when strawberries are in season. The recipe is David Lebovitz’s strawberry sorbet from The Perfect Scoop – I just add some cream before churning. Continue reading