Frozen persimmon sorbet

Have you been struck by the dreaded winter lurgy yet? It has cut a swathe through our small household in the last week and I don't think it's done with us yet. I lost my voice over the weekend, then lost my hearing as soon as it came back. Worst of all, I've lost my sense of taste - unless it's chocolate or chilli, I've been reduced to eating for texture only. This is profoundly depressing.

I'm hoping that my current high levels of persimmon consumption will speed my recovery. Persimmons are high in vitamin C and look extremely cheerful in the kitchen. Oranges are not the only fruit at this time of year, after all.

This week's Three Ways With... column is devoted to the not-so-humble persimmon, which I have been consuming in huge quantities lately (so imagine how much sicker I could have been!) The following recipe for frozen persimmon sorbet will be extremely soothing if you're unwell, but you don't have to be poorly to enjoy it. 

Frozen persimmon sorbet

I was extremely sceptical when I read about this recipe - and I did have to experiment with it a bit to make it work - but it's a nice bit of fun to try (with minimal effort required). All you need to do is freeze as many persimmons as you have diners for a minimum of three hours. At least 45 minutes before serving, remove the persimmons from the freezer. Slice off the tops and let the fruit sit at room temperature. After 45 minutes they will be icy cold, but soft enough to spoon out the frosty flesh. For an extra treat, pass around a bowl of whipped cream.

If this sounds like too much hassle, be reliably informed that you can freeze peeled, sliced persimmons and whiz them up in smoothies. And if you have a dehydrator, dried persimmon slices are absolute heaven (thanks Ann for the lovely specimens below).

Ice cream daze

I don't want to be a weather bore, but Wellington is having the most dismal summer ever. I mean, really. On Monday I was so cold at work I had to borrow a jacket destined for the lost property box. On Tuesday I ended up buying a winter coat. On Wednesday I wore it. Yesterday it rained so hard I had to wring my wet clothes out when I got home - and that was after sitting in the car for AN HOUR because the weather wreaked havoc on the traffic. Harrumph.

Tangelo and cinnamon sorbet. Yum!

But today the sun has come out and it seems like the long weekend might even be fine. Ish. Which means it might be more appropriate to tell you about the Three Ways With Frozen Treats column I wrote two weeks ago. Here it is, for your reading pleasure. Bonus points if you can identify the model in the photo.

Have a great weekend, everyone. May the sun shine on you, wherever you are!

Three ways with Guinness

Let's get something straight: I've never been one to join in the 'fun' of St Patrick's Day. Not for me the early morning pints of Guinness, the purposeful wearing of Kelly green or the joining of parades on March 17. Not my circus, not my monkeys, as the saying goes.

So it has come as a bit of a surprise to find that I'm actually a little bit partial to Guinness. I'm probably more likely to find a four-leaf clover than drink a pint of it in one go, but it's not a bad drop, all told. And it's quite fun to play with as an ingredient, especially if you get the cans with the little ball in them that help you pour it just like they do at the pub. Here are three ways to get some of that Guinness goodness into you...

Guinness Granita with Irish Cream
This idea came to me like a vision while I was running up Mt Victoria in the half-dark one hot and sticky late summer morning. It's every bit as refreshing as I hoped - and it makes one can of Guinness go a very long way. The granita will hold in the freezer for a couple of weeks and you should get at least six to eight servings out of it. The cream is best made just before serving - the amount specified below is enough for four.

1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup boiling water
1 x 440ml can Guinness
1/2 cup cream
2 Tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream (or Irish whiskey)

Put the sugar and water in a bowl and stir well to dissolve the sugar. Slowly add the Guinness and stir well, then pour into a shallow freezer-safe container.
Put in the freezer and leave until partially frozen (about 1 to 1.5 hours), then scrape up the crystals with a fork and stir well. Return to the freezer for another 1.5-2 hours, then scrape up the mixture into large crystals. At this point you can serve the granita, or scrape into a covered container and leave in the freezer until you're ready.
When you're ready to serve, whip the cream with the Baileys or whiskey until soft peaks form.
Scrape about half a cup of the granita into a glass, then top with a large spoonful of the cream.
Serve immediately.

2. Black Velvets
This isn't my invention but I've always loved the story associated with it. After the death of Prince Albert in 1861, a London bartender invented a drink that looked suitably sombre for those in mourning by mixing Guinness and champagne together. It takes a little bit of skill to get it right without the glasses overflowing, but it's otherwise a very simple drink. Just half-fill a champagne flute with sparkling wine (not your best French champagne, unless you're a member of the Guinness family or similar), then carefully, carefully, carefully, top up with chilled Guinness.

3. Guinness Affogato
If you don't have time to make a Guinness granita, as detailed above, you can still have a Guinness-y pudding. Scoop some best-quality vanilla ice cream into a chilled glass, then pour over half a shot of espresso coffee and half the same quantity of Guinness. Top with some shards of very dark chocolate.

Have a great week, everyone. Slainte!

Black Doris Coconut Ice Cream

The hand-chalked blackboard sign loomed in front of us like a vision. It was a hot, windy day in the Wairarapa and the promise of 'REAL FRUIT ICE CREAM' was the perfect cure for three crochety travellers after two hours' in the car.

We drove into the orchard and parked outside the tin shed shop. Inside, in 40-degree temperatures, a sulky queue waited while one sweating woman operated the till and another worked the ice cream counter. I began to realise that we had made a wrong turn. The fruit and vegetables, which I'd first assumed to be grown on-site, looked like they'd travelled as far as we had. The fridge was full of dog meat. None of the staff looked like they'd eaten a vegetable that wasn't a deep-fried chip for a very long time.

The 'real fruit ice cream' sealed the deal. This was no artisan orchard operation, more like a factory production line. The 'real fruit' was pre-bagged frozen stuff, fed into a tube with cheap blocks of 'vanilla' ice cream. The resulting concoction spewed in a swirl out the other end of the machine, caught by a cone that tasted of stale communion wafers.

But by then it was too late. We paid handsomely for our ice creams and sat outside in the shade, wishing we'd stopped at a dairy for three of Tip Top's finest instead.

Nothing beats a good ice cream, nothing quite disappoints like a bad one. The good stuff is easy to make at home - here's how.

Black Doris Coconut Ice Cream
Last weekend my sister brought me a bag of tiny Black Doris plums from Hawkes Bay. They were slightly too soft for eating, so I decided to have a bit of an experiment with them instead. This incredibly good ice cream was the result. I based the coconut custard on this chocolate and cinnamon ice cream recipe by Emma Galloway (an ice cream so good it inspired me to acquire an ice cream attachment for my KitchenAid). It's very easy - the only hard bit is waiting for the custard to chill.
If you don't have an ice cream maker, then you should probably try making this just as a custard - set it in small bowls and top with a lid of melted dark chocolate.

10 small Black Doris plums
2 Tbsp sugar
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 x 400ml tin coconut cream (I used Kara brand)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup caster sugar

Heat the oven to 200C and line a small baking dish with foil. Halve and stone the plums, then place, cut side up, in the dish. Sprinkle over the 2Tbsp of sugar and bake for 25 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly, then mash into a puree. You should end up with about 1 cup of fruit.

To make the custard, put the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and beat until white and fluffy (an electric mixer is the easiest way to do this).
While that's happening, put the coconut cream, vanilla and plum puree in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to near boiling point, then pour onto the egg yolk mixture, whisking all the time.
Pour this mixture back into the saucepan and return to the heat, stirring constantly for about five minutes or until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Transfer to a bowl and cool completely before refrigerating, stirring occasionally to stop a skin from forming on the top.
When the custard has chilled thoroughly, churn in an ice cream machine according to instructions.

Have a great week, everyone x

Hello 2016

I'm writing this in the room we grandly call 'the office'. There is just enough room for the laptop on this huge old wooden desk, jammed between a pile of notebooks on one side and a stack of what looks to be school 'art' projects, plus the recently deceased cover of the ironing board, on the other. I have a cup of tea balanced precariously on a pile of papers that includes a recipe for 'pancetta' cured kingfish and a cookbook idea I wrote down in a hurry last week. It is a mess and I really should do something about it.

The dishwasher is purring upstairs, but not so loudly that I won't be able to hear my best beloved cutting into the loaves of bread I've just taken out of the oven, despite knowing this is a terrible crime. So far, 2016, so good.

We ended 2015 with vintage champagne, whitebait fritters and lamb racks cooked to a recipe from the first Ottolenghi book, plus chocolate fondants from The Cook's Companion. The fondants were a disaster (I was so desperate not to overcook them that I erred too far in the direction of undercookedness), but no one seemed to mind. The champagne may have had something to do with that, or perhaps it's because molten chocolate is better than no chocolate. Anyway, I'm going to get them right eventually.

Apart from that, I have no pressing food goals for 2016. I'm not going to drink less wine or eat less cheese. I'd like to grow more vegetables and see if I can nurture a new sourdough starter. If that sounds all a bit too virtuous, I'm also going to master the new ice cream attachment I have for my KitchenAid.

The latter goal reminds me of a clipping I have pinned to the wall above my desk. It's a fragment of an interview with Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian politician who was held hostage in the Colombian jungle by FARC guerillas for more than six years. At the end of the story, Betancourt says the experience made her decide that she would learn to cook when she got out and that she would "always have flowers in my room and wear perfume; that I would no longer forbid myself to eat ice-cream or cakes. I understood that in my life I had abandoned too many little pleasures, taking them for granted."

Ingrid Betancourt had to suffer unspeakable horrors to reach that realisation, the rest of us should learn from it. Like she says at the end of the story, "I never say no to an ice-cream."

What are your ice cream dreams for 2016?

Roadtest: The Zoku Quick Pop Maker

"Mu-umm," she says, bedraggled and worn-out at the end of a busy day at school. "I'm very hot and bothered. Do you think it's a good day to have an iceblock?"

This is what's known as parental roulette. Say yes, and you've got a 10-minute walk to the village, followed by a five-minute high, which will not be enough to get you all the way home again.  Say no, and you get a stompy six-year-old who is less than impressed with your suggestion that a nice glass of cold water when you get home will help her cool down.

After roadtesting the Zoku Quick Pop Maker, I may have found the solution.

Zoku's Quick Pop Makers are benchtop instant freezing units. You keep them in your freezer (the three-pop maker takes up about the same amount of space as a two-litre ice cream container), then whip them out to make DIY ice 'pops' (that's ice blocks to Kiwis and ice lollies to the British) in less than 10 minutes. You can make them as simple or as fancy as you like (Zoku even have a dazzling recipe book full of inspiring ideas) and - best of all - you get to control exactly what goes into them. We made the Mint Choc Chip Pops from the recipe book, using organic whole milk, agave nectar, peppermint essence and Whittaker's 72 per cent cacao chocolate - and they were fabulous.

Sound too good to be true? After some spectacular failures when trying to make homemade pops the normal way (I find they never, ever come out of the molds cleanly enough), I was very skeptical. But the Zoku worked an absolute charm. You release the pops with the aid of the 'Quick Tool' (included in each kit) and it's a mostly angst-free process. The pops are ready to eat then and there, but you can carefully wrap them in plastic and return them to the freezer to eat another day.

On the downside, they're not completely instant. The unit has to be frozen for 24 hours before you use it, and it's only good for two or three batches in a sitting. I found the second and third batches took a lot longer to freeze - and for the third, I actually returned the whole unit to the freezer for half an hour to make sure they set properly. You also need to wait for it to defrost before you clean it.

All things considered though, it's a pretty fun addition to the kitchen. A Quick Pop Maker would also make a fantastic family Christmas present for the people with everything. If you're going to buy your children a device of some kind, at least get them one that encourages real-time social interaction!

THE DETAILS
Zoku Quick Pop Makers come in three sizes - single (RRP $49.99), duo and triple (RRP $110). Each comes with a Quick Tool, sticks and drip guards, plus instructions. Find New Zealand stockists here.

GIVEAWAY
Want to win a Quick Pop Maker? Check out The Kitchenmaid on Facebook for your chance to win one!

Treat me: Brown bread icecream

"Unlike Justice, hospitality should not be seen to be done!"

So begins 'Dining In And Dining Out In New Zealand', an absolute treasure in my cookbook library. This book, gifted by a friend with a strong sense of the absurd, has survived many cookbook culls and house moves. Written in 1973, it has stayed a strong favourite. I'm unsure if the author, Patricia Harris, is still alive, but I'd love to meet her. I imagine her as one part Margot Leadbetter, one part Fanny Craddock and two parts Delia Smith. 

Like the title suggests, the book is part-dedicated to catering at home and part-dedicated to New Zealand's 1970s restaurant scene. While none of the restaurants she recommends are still in existence, many of her recipes remain in vogue. I'm not sure I agree with her dictum that vichyssoise (first take your homemade chicken stock) is the answer to the busy hostess's woes, but the intention is well meant.

My fondness for Mrs Harris' means her book has never been relegated to my office (the staging post for cookbooks that need new homes), so it's getting a moment in the sun this month for Belleau Kitchen's June Random Recipe challenge. We were supposed to pick the recipe on page 40, but since I couldn't see myself acquiring 'five dozen rock oysters or four dozen Stewart Island monsters' for the seafood starter, I went for page 41 instead. 

Brown Bread Icecream

This comes from the 'Dinner At Home' chapter, which is full of helpful suggestions. My favourite refers to the carving of the loin of lamb: "persuade your husband to carve it as neatly as possible (if your husband is one of those "joint wreckers" I advise you to invite an experienced surgeon among your guests)". Mrs Harris suggests serving this unusual, but delectable, icecream with caramel sauce and praline, but I reckon it's fine by itself or served between two very thin slices of toasted baguette in a kind of literal icecream sandwich. No husband or surgeon required.

170g brown sugar

60g butter

125ml water

4 egg yolks, beaten

60ml milk

700ml cream

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups wholemeal bread crumbs, lightly toasted

Put the egg yolks in a bowl that will fit over a medium saucepan in a double-boiler arrangement. Put a couple of cms of water in the saucepan and set over medium heat.

Put the sugar, butter and water in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until it reaches boiling point.

Pour this syrup over the eggs and beat well, then add the milk. Set the egg mixture bowl over the water in the saucepan and stir well until it thickens (about five minutes).

Remove the bowl from the saucepan and put in the freezer to chill (about 20 minutes should do it).

When the egg mixture is cold, whip the cream and vanilla together until it is just before the soft peak stage. Fold in the egg mixture and the toasted breadcrumbs, then scrape into a plastic container. Cover and freeze for at least four hours. 

Let ripen at room temperature for 10 minutes before serving. Makes about 1.3 litres.

Have a great weekend, everyone x

Treat me: Easy coffee sorbet

Once upon a time I had a flatmate called Justin who ate, drank, lived and breathed coffee. He worked at a coffee roastery, he installed a state-of-the-art coffee machine in our house and he happily spent hours teaching everyone how to extract the perfect espresso. He was a coffee god.

Now, this would have been great, but coffee and I just don't get on. I love the smell of it, the science of it, the taste of it - but one sip and I generally don't feel so good.

In Wellington, where coffee is king, this is quite the social disability. Telling someone you'll meet them for a cup of herbal tea or a glass of water just doesn't have quite the same ring to it. But I'm happy to sit with them while they drink their coffee and share the nuggets of coffee know-how I picked up from Justin.

The thing I remember the most is about water quality. If your water isn't pure and fresh, then your coffee will taste dirty and stale. That's why it's important to clean out your coffee machine and always use filtered water when you make it. Using a water filter means you're reducing levels of chlorine and trace heavy metals, which can be detrimental to the taste.

Easy Coffee Sorbet
If you can filter water and boil a kettle, you can make this simple sorbet. I've given instructions below for making it with plunger coffee grounds, but if you are a fan of instant (Justin would be appalled, but it was good enough for Elizabeth David, apparently), then by all means use it. If you're a fan of filtered water, don't forget to enter your recipe into the Better With BRITA competition - but hurry, entries close on June 30.
The best thing to do with this sorbet is to make it into a kind of reverse affogato - scoop the sorbet into little glasses or demi-tasse coffee cups, then pour over some cream. The cream starts to freeze in parts, making it seem very luxurious to eat.

6 Tbsp plunger grind coffee
750ml filtered water
250g raw sugar
2 egg whites

Put the coffee in a plunger. Bring the all the water to just before boiling in a kettle, then slowly pour 500ml of it over the coffee grounds. Stir briefly, then leave for four minutes to steep.
Put the sugar in a small saucepan and pour the remaining 250ml water over the top. Stir briskly to start dissolving the sugar, then put the pot over gentle heat and bring to a quiet simmer, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from the heat.
Plunge the coffee, then pour through a fine sieve into the sugar syrup (this makes sure the end sorbet isn't gritty). Let cool, then pour into a plastic container with a lid and freeze overnight (or for at least eight hours).
Let it defrost slightly, then blend it in a food processor with the egg whites. The mixture will increase in volume and turn a lighter colour.
Pour it back into the plastic container and freeze again for a couple of hours.
Serve in scoops as directed above, add to an iced coffee or eat straight from the freezer on a hot day.

Have a great weekend, everyone x

* This post was created with the assistance of BRITA, but all opinions (and the recipe) are my own. 

Treat me: Frozen yoghurt iceblocks

This recipe - if you can call it that - is direct from the 'I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier' files. If you've ever wondered how to make your own nutritionally sound, outrageously simple and utterly delicious popsicles/ice blocks/ice lollies/freezer pops/icy poles, I have the answer.

But first, here's a beach scene to put you in the mood...

This photo, taken last night, is meant to distract you from the fact that while my amazing homemade frozen yoghurt popsicles are genius in icy form, I have been unable to take a decent photo of them. Try as I might, they just turn out looking wrong. So if you really want to see what they look like, you'll need to make them yourself. And, as I'm about to show you, it's probably the easiest thing you'll do all weekend. Here's how.

Frozen yoghurt iceblocks
You need four things to make these frozen treats: Greek yoghurt, good jam (or a variation thereof), iceblock moulds and about two hours. My iceblock moulds are Tupperware ones and, to be frank, they are weird. The shape is good, but the supposedly clever handle thing makes them hard to hold. I'd say that was a design flaw, wouldn't you? I've seen some much simpler looking ones at the supermarket for about $5 - I'm thinking of trading up.
My first attempt was made with the last spoonful of some gorgeous apricot and vanilla jam made by my lovely sister. Since then I've made them with some not-homemade but still good blackcurrant jelly, lemon curd, and a sprinkle of chopped nuts and chocolate. There are no limits - just stick to the quantities I've outlined below.
My iceblock moulds take about 60ml (roughly 1/4 of a cup) each - so these quantities are to suit. But you can scale them to fit your needs (and any leftover mixture can be frozen in a little plastic container or eaten on the spot).

1 cup/250ml full-fat Greek yoghurt
1/4 cup/60ml high quality jam (or lemon curd, or chocolate/nuts as detailed above)

Stir the yoghurt and jam together until well combined. Taste - remember that some of the sweetness will be lost in the freezing process - and swirl through a little more jam if desired. Pour into iceblock molds (this amount will fill five or six) and freeze for one to two hours.
Unmould - dipping them in just-boiled water usually helps - and enjoy.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Treat me: Rum and raisin ice cream

This week, in between re-telling the story of the nativity ("but Mum, why was the baby Jesus a boy? Can he be a girl!"), I have been reading The Man Whose Mother Was A Pirate. In case you're not familiar with this Margaret Mahy classic, it tells the story of a buttoned-down chap who is enticed away from his dull, everyday life by his sea-faring mother. It's such a good read. Put it on your Christmas present list. I wouldn't say the same for another book that was on high rotate here a couple of weeks ago - a flimsy yarn that saw the hapless Captain Pugwash in a standoff with a bunch of pirates over some chocolate smuggling. If your child makes a beeline for this at an op shop, point them in another direction.

Anyway, thinking about pirates and mulling over the December We Should Cocoa challenge, in which Choclette has sensibly chosen alcohol as the key ingredient, led to this ice cream. It's not so alcohol-soaked that one scoop will send you off into paroxysms of piratical rumbustification, but I'd advise against giving it to children (even if their mothers are pirates).

Rum and raisin ice cream
No need for a fancy machine to make this ice cream - why, you could even make it in the galley of a galleon (as long as it had a freezer). If you're not a fan of traditional Christmas puddings, this is a great do-ahead dessert. Freeze it in a large lined loaf tin (or even a cake tin), then serve slices with little tots of rum and chocolate sauce. If you are a fan of proper Christmas pudding - or even Christmas mince pies - then a dollop of this on top is a delectable alternative to brandy butter.

1/4 cup dark, smoky rum
1/2 cup raisins
2 egg yolks
1 egg
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup golden syrup
500ml cream
70g dark chocolate, roughly chopped into pieces no bigger than a raisin

At least two hours before you're ready to make the ice cream (and therefore at least eight hours before you want to eat it), put the raisins and rum in a small bowl. Cover and set aside.
When you're ready to make it, beat the egg yolks, egg and sugar until pale and thick. Use electric beaters unless you have the arms of a sailor.
Drain the rum into the egg mixture (reserving the raisins), then add the golden syrup and beat again. Pour in the cream and beat until soft peaks form. Scatter over the raisins and chocolate and fold in. Pour into a plastic container and freeze for about six hours before eating. Makes about 1.3 litres.

Have a wonderful weekend, me hearties x

Treat me: Raspberry chocolate gelato

She wore raspberry sorbet... the kind you find at the organic store

She wore raspberry sorbet... and if I let her she'd eat more and more

I'm sorry if I've given you a Prince-flavoured ear worm. It's just that ever since I made this amazing raspberry and chocolate sorbet I've had that song (or a bad variation of it) stuck in my head. 

Outing our household as a milk-free one has meant I have found quite a few dairy-free kindred spirits. While we're not dairy-free (come over one morning, watch the Small Girl and I load up our toast with slabs of butter - 'and peanut butter on the top so the butter is peeking out, please Mummy'), I do feel a certain kinship with the non-milk-loving kind. So, in a bid to please them (and, use up some leftover egg whites), I feel compelled to share this piece of dairy-free genius with you. 

Raspberry and chocolate gelato

This is inspired by a recipe using frozen cherries by Australian food stylist Caroline Velik, who makes really beautiful food. Note to self: when cherries are plentiful in the summer, freeze some. I call this gelato because it's not icy like a sorbet, but all light and airy in your mouth, like really good gelato. You won't believe there's no dairy products in it, honest. Leave out the chocolate if you're a purist, but it is quite fun. Alternatively, melt about 100g of good dark chocolate with 100ml cream and pour this over a scoop of the gelato for a real treat. You can make this in a freestanding mixer or in a bowl with electric beaters.

300g frozen raspberries

2 egg whites

1/2 cup caster sugar

100g very good dark chocolate, smashed into little bits.

Put the raspberries, sugar and chocolate into the bowl of a freestanding mixer (or a large bowl). Turn the beaters on and let the berries mush up a bit. Pour in the egg whites and turn the beaters to high speed. Continue beating, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides, for five minutes, until the mixture has doubled in size and is very light and fluffy. Scrape into a two-litre plastic container with a lid and freeze for at least four hours. Makes nearly two litres - which can be eaten remarkably quickly.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The scoop on Gelissimo gelato

Graham Joe is truly living the dream. After 20-odd years in IT, he now develops gelato flavours for a living. On the Wellington waterfront, with the sea sparkling outside. You want to hate him, don't you?

Graham (who is thoroughly lovely; you couldn't hate him if you tried) got in touch with me a few months back, after he saw my recipe for Speculoos Spread. I'd wondered on Twitter if it would make good icecream material - and he agreed. So that's how I found myself backstage at Gelissimo yesterday, 'helping' him turn the concept into gelato. I've never worked so hard in my life. Honestly. You try spending a Sunday afternoon tasting gelato and trying to work out how many de Brood Bakkers Speculaas biscuits to crumble into the mixture. Then imagine you have to sit and eat a tub of it while you and Graham speculate about what else might be a good gelato flavour. I was so exhausted afterwards I had to lie on the sofa when I got home and try to decide whether batch one or batch two was better. (Batch two, in case you were wondering, but I might have to eat all of batch one just to be sure.)

With any luck, you'll be able to taste it soon at Gelissimo too. Don't worry if you live too far away, I'll go and buy some on your behalf. That's the sort of selfless person I am.

What culinary masterpieces did you create - or eat - over the weekend?

Treat me: Anzac Biscuit Icecream

The idea for this came to me when I was running home on Wednesday night. One minute I was counting the cars roaring through the Mount Victoria tunnel, the next I was sprinting down Moxham Ave to get home and write my idea down before I forgot it. See, running does improve your life in ways you could never have imagined. I'm not sure Tracy Anderson tells Gwyneth Paltrow to think of icecream during her personal training sessions, but she probably should...

Anzac Biscuit Icecream
This is extremely easy and fun to make, but if making the Anzac crumble seems a bridge too far (or you have some Anzac Biscuits left over from yesterday), you could just crush five or six Anzac biscuits up and stir them through the icecream mixture as detailed below.

For the Anzac crumble:
50g butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp golden syrup
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup desiccated coconut
1/4 cup plain flour

For the icecream:
3 egg yolks
3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
375ml (1 1/2 cups) cream

Make the crumble first. Heat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with a piece of baking paper measuring about 30cm by 30cm.
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, then add the sugar and golden syrup. Stir well, then remove from the heat and add the oats, coconut and flour. Mix well, then tip onto the baking paper. Spread out in a thin, even layer and put in the oven for 7-10 minutes, until golden and bubbling. Set aside - it will harden as it cools. When it's cold, make the icecream.
Put the egg yolks and brown sugar in a bowl and beat (with electric beaters, unless you have forearms of steel) until pale and thick. Pour in the cream and beat until soft peaks form. Take about two-thirds of the Anzac mixture and crumble it over the top. Fold it in gently, then pour the whole mixture into a lidded plastic container. Freeze for at least four hours, until firm. Reserve the rest of the Anzac mixture to crumble over the top when you serve the icecream.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. Make this icecream and it will be, I promise x

Treat me: Passionfruit Ice cream

Passionfruit must be the best thing about autumn. Just when you think there are no more fruit treats to be had until strawberry season starts again, these dimpled purple eggs start appearing. About this time four years ago I remember the Boy Wonder coming home from work with a small brown paper bag under his arm. In it were six passionfruit and they made our London flat smell like the tropics. At £1 a pop, we savoured each one like they were made of gold.

Passionfruit Ice cream
This is another iteration of this ice cream recipe - possibly my most favourite yet. It takes minutes to make and tastes almost good for you. This uses about six passionfruit - if you've got lots of them then you could make a simple syrup (two parts passionfruit pulp to one part caster sugar, bring to boil, simmer for five minutes) and drizzle it over the top.

150ml (about 1/2 a cup plus 2 Tbsp) passionfruit pulp
175g icing sugar
500ml cream

Mix the passionfruit and icing sugar together in a large bowl. Pour in the cream. Whisk until soft peaks form.
Pour into a lidded plastic container and freeze for at least four hours. Let soften for five minutes out of the freezer before serving.

Have a great weekend, everyone x

Treat me: Lemon meringue ice cream

I don't know what is wrong with me but all of a sudden I have become the world's worst maker of meringues.
I've made two batches now that have gone from fluffy peaks of snow-white mixture to dull beige piles and I've lost my nerve completely.
It might be my oven, which doesn't do low temperatures very well (surprising, given that the door has taken to falling open of its own accord). Anyway, the good thing about this is that I've worked out a really good way to use up my meringue disasters.

Lemon meringue ice cream
Don't worry - you don't need to go through the trauma of making a deliberately bad batch of meringues to make this ice cream. In fact, you don't need to make them at all. But you do need meringues of some sort (I won't judge you if you buy them) to fold through this tart, marmalade-streaked frozen wonder.

110g icing sugar
140ml (1/2 a cup plus 1 Tbsp) lemon juice
300ml cream
1/3 cup good lemon curd or marmalade
6-8 meringues, crumbled

Put the lemon juice and icing sugar in a large bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the cream and whisk until it forms soft peaks. Fold in the marmalade or lemon curd and crumbled meringues.
Pour into a lidded plastic container and freeze for at least four hours. Let soften for five minutes out of the fridge before serving.
If you want to be really fancy, pour the ice cream into a loaf tin lined with cling film. Top with a layer of marmalade or lemon curd, then a layer of meringues (obviously, you'll need more of both if you're doing it this way). Cover loosely with plastic and freeze as above. To serve, lift the whole contraption out of the loaf tin, whisk away the plastic wrap, and transfer to a serving platter.

Have a great weekend, everyone. If you have a fail-safe meringue recipe, especially one designed for temperamental ovens, I'd love to see it...

Treat me: Sticky red wine syrup

Of all the festive season leftovers, half-drunk bottles of wine are probably the hardest to deal with. Drinking them is the obvious solution, but there's only so much of that you can do before things get a bit messy. Freezing them in neat containers to add to risotto is another option that only works if your freezer isn't full of containers of stock you made from the ham bone. But in a bid to make some space in the fridge I devised this handy syrup that uses up the remains of a bottle of pinot noir and some strawberry jam. Even better, it can be poured over leftover icecream.

Red wine and strawberry syrup
This is really good poured over vanilla icecream and strawberries for a grown-up sundae, but you could also try it over pancakes or any kind of plain cake. I used strawberry jam because that's what we had, but another good fruity variety would work well. Not sure about raspberry though, unless you don't mind the pips. I'm quite keen to try one with white wine and marmalade, but we never seem to have any white wine left over...

250ml red wine
1/2 cup strawberry or raspberry jam
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp red wine vinegar

Put the wine, jam and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Let it simmer for 10-15 minutes, until syrupy (stirring occasionally). Remove from the heat and let cool, then taste. Add the vinegar (or a few drops of lemon juice) if it seems too sweet. Pour into a clean jar and store in the fridge.

Have a great weekend, everyone x

Treat me: Ice cream balls (Chomps)

One day, when we've all got lots of time on our hands, I'll tell you about my brave sister, who went off to seek her fortune in Chile with her husband and their three small children in the late 1980s. I'll tell you all about how my mother and I went too and how I learned to shake up pisco sours, aged 12. I'll tell you about empanadas and manjar and chasing Nick, my then three-year-old nephew, down the street in my pyjamas after he made a break for freedom.
But today I need to tell you about Chomps, the little balls of choc-dipped ice cream we discovered on subsequent visits. Tomorrow my nephew Nick is getting married and I've made some in his honour.

Choc-dipped ice cream balls (aka Chomps)
On one visit to Chile there was great to-do after Nick was suspected of stealing Chomps from the freezer. In hindsight, I suspect my dad may have been just as guilty, because he was just as keen on them. I wish I had thought of making these sooner; Dad would have loved them.
These aren't hard to make, exactly, but they do take a bit of kitchen zen. If you're making more than this amount, do it in batches so the ice cream doesn't melt.

For eight truffle-sized Chomps:
about 500ml good quality ice cream - I used vanilla
175g dark chocolate

At least two hours before you want to eat the Chomps, line a plastic container with foil. Using a teaspoon, scoop out little balls of the ice cream. They don't have to look perfectly round. Put them in the foil-lined container and return to the freezer until they are hard.
Melt the chocolate, either in a microwave, in a bowl over a pot of simmering water, or in a low oven. Set aside to cool slightly. Line another tray with foil.
When you are ready to dip, take the balls out of the freezer. Working quickly, dip one at a time in the chocolate. The best way to do this is to let the ice cream ball sit in the melted chocolate and use a small spatula to coat it. Don't panic and roll the ball around - the chocolate will set and fall off. Lift out carefully and put on the prepared tray. When all the balls are done, either eat immediately or return to the freezer.

Have a great weekend, everyone x

Sweet sweet Friday: Blackcurrant Icecream

To keep my brain occupied when I'm running on Saturday mornings I often try to plan meals in my head. Last Saturday, as I waddled around the south coast, I thought about the large bottle of cream sitting in the fridge, the half-jar of blackcurrant jam in the pantry and the fact that there was nothing for the babysitter to eat that night. Then I thought about the July We Should Cocoa challenge. By the time I'd made it around the coast, up the hill and down to the village I knew exactly what I was going to do. I nipped to the supermarket, picked up a tin of condensed milk and ran home. Funny how food is a good motivator, isn't it?

Blackcurrant Icecream
As well as qualifying for We Should Cocoa, this is also my first entry for the charmingly-titled 'Bloggers Scream For Icecream' challenge. You can read more about it here, but all you need to know this month is that the challenge involves making icecream with condensed milk. This recipe uses about a third of a tin, which leaves plenty for eating with a spoon while no one is looking. If you don't trust yourself with a tin of the stuff, you can see how to make your own here.

300ml cream
125ml condensed milk
1 dsp orange/lemon juice
1/2 cup good blackcurrant jam
100g good quality white or dark chocolate, chopped

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks. Fold in the condensed milk, orange or lemon juice, jam and chocolate. Pour into a container, cover and freeze. It should be ready in about four hours.

Have a great weekend, everyone. We're off to a birthday party that's just turned into a wedding!