It took a bit of experimentation to create a recipe for lemon ice cream that tasted bright and tangy and smelled as yellow as a just-scratched lemon, but that was also ultra-smooth and creamy. Simmering the lemon juice to reduce its water content, then adding fresh juice and carrageenan (a seaweed-derived gelling agent), makes an intensely lemony jelly. This is blended with zesty custard, resulting—truly—in the ice cream of the gods.
4 large Amalfi lemons or 6 unwaxed lemons
135 g/ ⅔ cup sugar
Pinch of iota carrageenan (or use powdered gelatin—it will still taste great but won’t be quite as smooth)
280 ml/¾ cup whole milk
180 ml/1 cup heavy cream
Small pinch of sea salt
5 egg yolks
1. To make the lemon jelly: wash the lemons then zest and juice them, and strain the juice to remove the seeds. Measure out the lemon juice into two amounts: 200 ml/¾ cup and 50 ml/¼ cup.
2. Put the 200 ml/¾ cup juice in a small non-reactive pan and bring it to a boil. Simmer until the volume of juice is reduced by half. This may take about 10 minutes—keep pouring the juice into a large measuring cup every 4 or 5 minutes to check on its progress and don’t let it burn around the edges of the pan. Take care to fully reduce the juice by half as this eliminates water from your ice cream and prevents it from being icy.
3. Put 2 tablespoons of the sugar into a bowl with the carrageenan or gelatin and mix together. Pour in the remaining 50 ml/¼ cup fresh juice and whisk until both the sugar and gelling agent have dissolved.
4. Add the 100 ml/½ cup hot, reduced lemon juice to the gel mix, whisk well, and allow the mixture to cool to a jelly consistency. Cover and chill in the fridge.
5. To prepare the ice cream: heat the milk, cream, and salt together in a non-reactive pan. Stir often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching. Once the milk is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and remaining sugar together in a separate bowl to combine.
6. Pour the hot milk in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking continuously. Return the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring constantly to avoid curdling while making sure it doesn’t boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, remove the custard from the heat, whisk in the lemon zest, and place the pan in a sink of ice water to cool it down—you can speed up the process by stirring it every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, strain it to remove the lemon zest, pour into a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge overnight.
7. To make the ice cream: the following day liquidize the cold custard and the lemon jelly together for a couple of minutes until smooth.
8. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
9. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a fortnight.
Variation—The hard green peel of bergamot fruit is so rich in essential oils that its taste is considered too strong for many culinary uses, but a Bergamot Jelly ice cream has a flavor like a breath of fresh air.
To make the ice cream, take two bergamot, zest one, and juice both. Reserve the zest and measure 100 ml/½ cup juice. Follow the method for the previous recipe, but reduce the sugar slightly. This time, don’t cook the juice. Mix the carrageenan with 2 tablespoons of the sugar, then whisk in the 100 ml/½ cup fresh bergamot juice to form a gel. Make sure you don’t steep the zest in the custard for too long, as it may become bitter.
Imaginary Neapolitan Ice Cream
Living in Naples in wintertime was annoying, if only because it meant that very few ice cream shops were open. Instead I made do with a spremuta d’arancia every couple of days from the aquafrescaio at the bottom of Via Toledo.
Draped with bunches of plastic oranges and lemons and situated on one of the most heavily trafficked corners of the city, the kiosk was typical of Naples. This relic of the past served to provide the populace with cold mineral water—the real stuff from underground springs—naturally sulphured and cooled over large blocks of ice. Now it sold cans of San Pellegrino and Peroni, and always glasses of delicious freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice.
The aquaiuolo at my local was called Marco. He looked like one half of Right Said Fred and knew pretty much all the local news you needed to know. He told me all about his mother, about how she used to bring a basket of lemons from her parents’ garden in the hills above Naples to sell to the former owner of the same kiosk—who used them to flavor the water—until the day when she took over the business herself, eventually handing it over to Marco. He explained how he made lemon granita in the summer using a grattaghiaccio—a small box-shaped steel plane, built to slide over the block of frozen lemon syrup and create crystals of shaved ice. I expressed my regret at not being in Naples at the right time of year to try this delicacy, but Marco said I could have his old ice shaver if I wanted…then he thought twice, and said I could have it for 5 euros.
Gelateria della Scimmia (the monkey) was another local hangout—one of the few gelaterie that remained open; it was the kind that specialized in huge shiny mounds of ice cream with whole candy bars or pineapples or sometimes toys embedded in them. The kind that most likely relied on foamy packet mixes of flavorings and a heavy hand with the blue food coloring. It sold banana ice cream, shaped on a stick and dipped in chocolate. To be honest these were delicious, and were my treat of choice on a winding walk down from Spaccanapoli to the harbor on my days off. But it was not the kind of ice cream I had fantasized about eating in Naples—the kind of thing you read about in recipe books…
But Naples likes fast food, strong coffee, shiny puffy jackets, wraparound sunglasses, and neon trainers—not lemon leaves and muslin. So I have had to make my own imaginary Neapolitan ice cream—real Neapolitans would rather eat a hot dog and french fry pizza and a frozen banana.
The flavor of this ice cream is mild and creamy, just lifted by an oily spritz of lemon. Soften in the fridge for 15 minutes before serving with Espresso Granita (this page) and Date Shake ice cream (this page).
100 g/3½ oz whole blanched almonds
1 large Amalfi lemon
140 g/⅔ cup sugar
400 ml/1½ cups buffalo milk or rich, creamy Guernsey milk
3 large egg yolks
1. To prepare the ice cream: place the almonds in a food processor, grate in the zest of the lemon (save the rest of the lemon), and add a couple of tablespoons of the sugar. Pulse them together until fine and gritty, but don’t over-grind or the mixture will become oily.
2. Heat the milk in a non-reactive pan, stirring often to prevent it from catching. When the milk is steaming hot, whisk the egg yolks and remaining sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
3. Pour the hot milk over the yolks in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs, while making sure it doesn’t boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, remove the pan from the heat, add the ground almonds and stir them in, then cover the pan with plastic wrap and place in a sink of ice water to cool. Once the custard is at room temperature, scrape it into a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge.
4. To make the ice cream: the following day, add the juice of the lemon to the custard and blend it for 2 minutes until as smooth as possible.
5. Pour the custard into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Leafy novellino (navel) oranges are found in Italian markets between October and January, and are much prized as eating oranges for their excellent sweet flesh and (by me) for their thick, dusky peel—heavy with fragrant essential oil, which is released with the scratch of a finger-nail. I’m not sure whether I love them because I loved scratch ’n’ sniff stickers when I was a kid (probable) or I loved scratch ’n’ sniff stickers when I was a kid because I loved oranges (doubtful), but I can never resist dragging a fingernail over an orange to have a quick sniff.
This ice cream uses the same method as the Amalfi Lemon Jelly recipe (this page), with a slight variation in the quantity of juice and sugar used—orange juice is sweeter and more palatable than lemon, after all. The result is much milder and less tart than the lemon ice cream but is softly fragrant and zesty instead, and very lovely.
Serve with Date Shake (this page) and Saffron Custard ice creams (this page). It is also delicious sprinkled with some cinnamon-dusted buttery Rye Crumbs (this page).
3 unwaxed oranges
120 g/⅔ cup sugar
Pinch of iota carrageenan (or use powdered gelatin)
Juice of ½ lemon, strained
160 ml/¾ cup whole milk
300 ml/1 cup heavy cream
Small pinch of sea salt
5 egg yolks
1. To make the orange jelly: rinse the oranges and pat them dry, then zest and juice them. Reserve the zest and strain the juice to remove the seeds. Measure out 250 ml/1 cup juice—if there is any extra, drink it, as you don’t need any more for this recipe.
2. Place the juice in a small non-reactive pan and bring it to a boil. Simmer until the volume of juice is reduced by half to approximately 120 ml/⅔ cup. This may take about 10 minutes—keep pouring the juice into a large measuring cup every 4 or 5 minutes to check on its progress and really take care not to let it burn around the edges of the pan. Take care to fully reduce the juice by half as this eliminates water from your ice cream and prevents it from being icy.
3. Put 2 tablespoons of the sugar into a bowl with the carrageenan or gelatin and mix together. Whisk the lemon juice into the bowl until the sugar and gelling agent have dissolved.
4. Add the 100 ml/½ cup hot, reduced orange juice to the gel mix, whisk well, and allow to cool to a jelly consistency. Cover and chill in the fridge.
5. To prepare the ice cream: heat the milk, cream, and salt together in a non-reactive pan. Stir often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching. Once the milk is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and remaining sugar together in a separate bowl to combine.
6. Pour the hot milk in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, remove the custard from the heat, whisk in the orange zest, and place the pan in a sink of ice water to cool it down—you can speed up the cooling process by stirring it every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, strain it to remove the zest, squeezing hard to extract as much flavor as possible. Pour into a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill overnight.
7. To make the ice cream: the following day, liquidize the custard and orange jelly together for a couple of minutes until perfectly smooth.
8. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
9. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a fortnight.
My tiny mind was blown when I first visited Los Angeles—and was greeted by the anti-depressive sight of the January farmers’ market with its banks of orange and yellow citrus I’d never even heard of: sweetie-sized mandaquat, Key limes and calamondins, egg-yolk yellow Meyer lemons, and Sunburst tangerines. I snuck half-pound plastic bags of delicate, olive-shaped kumquats into my boots to bring them home with me and experiment with capturing their sweet-and-sour flavor in an ice cream recipe.
I’m not going to demand you start zesting and juicing kumquats to make this ice cream—that sounds like the kind of job you might get asked to do as a bad joke on your first day in a pastry kitchen. The kumquats are cooked whole, as you would for a boiled orange cake, before being blended into the custard base. The resulting ice cream is mild, fragrant, and custardy, with a little chewiness from the pectin you get by using whole fruits. It is brilliant paired with Carrot Seed ice cream (this page) or Leafy Clementine Granita (this page).
420 g/1 lb kumquats (or equal weight of thin-skinned citrus fruit)
200 ml/¾ cup whole milk
300 ml/1¼ cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon mild honey
3 egg yolks
210 g/1 cup sugar
1. To prepare the ice cream: wash the kumquats and cook them gently with a tablespoon of water until they are tender. The best way to do this is in a microwave on medium-high for 4 to 5 minutes, as they can’t burn. Otherwise, use a pan with a tight-fitting lid to create steam, and cook over medium heat for about 12 minutes, shaking the pan often to make sure they aren’t sticking to the bottom. Pierce them with the tip of a sharp knife to check that they’re tender. Leave to cool, then chill.
2. Heat the milk, cream, and honey together in a non-reactive pan. Stir often to prevent it from catching. Once the liquid is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
3. Pour the hot liquid in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs, and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, place the pan in a sink of ice water to cool it down—you can speed up the cooling process by stirring it every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, scrape it into a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge.
4. To make the ice cream: the following day, add the whole kumquats to the cold custard and liquidize with an immersion blender until as smooth as possible. I mean really blitz them, as you want to get as much kumquat in the mix as possible. Blend until the custard turns a creamy orange color with hardly any flecks of fruit, a good 2 to 3 minutes. Using a small ladle, push the kumquat custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container.
5. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Variation—The Meyer lemon is a fragrant, thin-skinned variety of lemon, supposedly a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange. It has a smooth, orange-tinted peel and a low acidity that once cooked makes it possible to be eaten skin and all—like kumquats. It makes a mild, creamy ice cream that is great when rippled with tangy kumquat or lemon Citrus Gel (see this page).
To create Meyer Lemon ice cream, cook 2 whole Meyer lemons in a microwave with 100 ml/½ cup of water. Pierce the lemons, place in a bowl covered with plastic wrap, and microwave on high until tender, 5 to 6 minutes. Otherwise, simmer them whole in a pan full of water with a lid on for 45 minutes. Drain and allow to cool before roughly chopping and weighing out 420 g/1 lb fruit then proceeding as above.
Kumquat Custard / Satsuma Miyagawa (this page)
This seems like an odd idea until you pinch yourself and remember that many spices—like coriander and pepper—are the seeds of plants. So think of carrot seed as a spice; its wild, aromatic, aniseedy flavor pairs really well with citrus ice creams or fresh strawberries. The reason that it’s pretty impractical to use more often in cooking is that the seeds are so tiny—it would take about 2,500 to fill a teaspoon!
You can buy packets of seed from garden centers or online, but if you have a garden and happen to grow carrots, then gathering them yourself in the summer when plants cease flowering, bolt, and “go to seed” is a nice enough way to spend some time—you get tons more than you would from a packet and you end up with fingertips that smell good too.
300 ml/1¼ cups whole milk
300 ml/1¼ cups heavy cream
Pinch of sea salt
110 g/½ cup sugar
5 g/1¼ teaspoon carrot seeds (about 3 packets of seed)
3 egg yolks
1. To prepare the ice cream: heat the milk, cream, and salt in a non-reactive pan. Stir often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching.
2. Grind 2 tablespoons of the sugar and the carrot seeds together using a mortar and pestle (failing that, a spice grinder will do). Tip into a bowl with the remaining sugar and egg yolks and whisk until combined.
3. Pour the hot milk and cream over the egg mixture in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs, and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, place the pan into a sink of iced water to cool—stir every so often to help the cooling process along. Once the custard is at room temperature, scrape it into a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge.
4. To make the ice cream: the following day, use a small ladle to push the custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container. Discard any little bits of carrot seed in the sieve and blitz the custard for 1 minute using an immersion or regular blender.
5. Pour the custard into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of stiff whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a fortnight.
Variations—Substitute the carrot seeds for fresh parsley seed, fennel seed, or dill seed.
Another delicious variation is Saffron Custard. Use the basic custard recipe previous (minus the carrot seed) and infuse it with a few threads of saffron overnight (two or three strands max—don’t overdo it). Reduce the sugar to 100 g/½ cup and add a teaspoon of light floral honey to make up the sweetness.
Oroblanco is a citrus fruit, a hybrid of a seedless white grapefruit and a pomelo. The fruits are large but light, with a thick foamy white pith that tears apart easily to reveal icebergs of sweet, juicy flesh. Their zest is incredibly flavorful and aromatic—and much less bitter than usual grapefruit. Unfortunately, the only place I’ve found them for sale is in California. On holiday in San Francisco I bought a few pale moon-like fruits from the famous Ferry Plaza farmers’ market to put in my rucksack. Back at our motel I lay by the pool, in bliss—drinking ice-cold Sierra Nevada and recording the soft ripping sound of peeling them onto my phone (it was a really good sound).
At the time I was quite pleased with myself for coming up with this flavor combination—but in fact combining grapefruit with pale ale is not much more of a jump from running a cheek of cut lime around the neck of a bottle of beer. Also, when I was a child I’m pretty sure I remember buying lager ’n’ lime and cider ice pops from the corner shop…So, as is proven once again, there are no original ideas.
This sorbet is best served from a long paper cup with a slush puppy spoon-straw, and some salty pretzels on the side.
125 g/⅔ cup sugar
125 ml/½ cup water
3 Oroblanco grapefruit, or 2 pink grapefruit and 1 pomelo
200 ml/¾ cup pale ale
1. To prepare the sorbet: heat the sugar and water together in a pan to make a simple syrup, stirring to dissolve the grains of sugar. As soon as the syrup starts to simmer, remove it from the heat. Set aside to cool.
2. Wash the fruit, then pat dry and grate the zest of one fruit directly into the cold simple syrup. Leave this to infuse while you prepare the rest of the sorbet. (Make sure the syrup is cold—infusing grapefruit zest in warm or hot syrup makes it too bitter.)
3. Simmer the pale ale in a non-reactive pan over medium heat until reduced to 100 ml/½ cup. Leave this to cool.
4. Juice all of the fruit. Measure out 400 ml/1½ cups juice and add this to the simple syrup. Stir in the reduced pale ale, and then strain the mix through a fine-mesh sieve to remove the zest. Place in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or until thoroughly chilled.
5. To make the sorbet: once the mix has chilled, give it a good stir and pour it into an ice cream machine, then churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of slushy snow, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Scrape the sorbet into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a few days.
Note—The point of simmering the pale ale is to cook off some of the alcohol, while concentrating the flavor. Alcohol has a “melty” effect on sorbets, as it depresses the freezing point, giving the sorbet a softer, more slushy texture. You might notice that this doesn’t freeze as hard as the other sorbet recipes, and if left too long in the freezer the alcohol will begin to “weep” from the mix.
Having to take your summer holiday in January (the typical life of the ice cream seller) has its perks, and the color of my perks are orange and yellow!
One winter a few years back, I went on a kind of citrus driving tour of Italy with my little brother Bruno, who—to his credit—kept me company despite never having shown any interest in citrus fruit before, or since.
We flew to Nice and started at the lemon festival in Menton to shop for orange cédrat—a warty, medieval-looking type of citron; moving farther along the great damp green Ligurian coast we sought but did not find bitter chinotti (chinotto oranges); then we continued on down to Rome to look for the mystical moon-white grapefruits in Giardini Ninfa (closed until April—always check opening times). Further on took us to Sorrento for Amalfi-lemon-everything until we finally ended up in Reggio di Calabria in mid-bergamot season. We found nothing but a strange little bergamot museum (complete with disco-bar—empty in January), a tiny bottle of green bergamot oil in a pharmacy, and a dish of bergamot-flavored boiled sweets in the gas station by the harbor.
On a whim, we took the night ferry over the twinkling straights of Messina to Sicily. Driving into Catania the following morning, we passed Mount Etna and its surrounding frosty orchards lit up with almond blossom, glowing in the low winter sun. Leafy oranges were everywhere in the market and if I expressed my very genuine delight in them, the vendors refused payment and tried to give them away instead—either as a matter of pride or as though they thought they had found a good parent who would love them too.
Cream-filled doughnut-like zeppole di San Giuseppe filled the display windows in the Caffé del Duomo, opposite the statue of u Liotru—Catania’s black lava elephant. The glass-fronted fridges held ice-cold jugs of blood orange juice that had been squeezed so fiercely that they had a thick layer of pink creamy froth on top. It tasted like strawberries and I drank three full glasses, embarrassed to have to keep returning to the cashier to pay my 1 euro 60.
We passed a couple of old guys selling garden lemons out of the trunk of their car. Their cardboard sign read limone naturale (non-chemically treated). “Solo aqua e sapone,” they explained, “come lei signorita, come lei!” (“Only washed with soap and water—like you!”)
Meanwhile, Bruno got shouted at by a carabinieri for dropping orange peel on the pavement. Magic Sicily.
A sherbet is like a sorbet but with the addition of a drop of cream to soften it and balance the acidity—although you can leave this out if you prefer. This recipe is a bit like sherbet powder too, frothy and tangy with layers of flavor from the three types of citrus used and an uplifting green fragrance from the bergamot.
155 g/¾ cup sugar
255 ml/1 cup water
3 blood oranges
1 Amalfi or unwaxed lemon
½ green Calabrian bergamot or 1 bergamot lemon or 3 drops of bergamot oil
Splash of heavy cream
1. To prepare the sherbet: heat the sugar and 155 ml/⅔ cup of the water together in a pan to make a simple syrup, stirring to dissolve the sugar. As soon as the syrup starts to simmer, remove it from the heat. Set aside to cool and then put in the fridge until completely chilled.
2. Zest 1 of the oranges, the lemon, and the bergamot (if using) and scrape the zest into the cold syrup. Juice all of the fruits, then add the juice and remaining 100 ml/½ cup water to the simple syrup and stir well. Chill this mix in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
3. Remove the mix from the fridge, stir in a splash of heavy cream and the bergamot oil (if using), then blitz well with an immersion blender for 1 minute. Strain the mix through a sieve or chinois, squeezing hard to remove the juice from the zest (discard the zest).
4. To make the sherbet: pour the mix into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and thick and snowy, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
5. Scrape the sherbet into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a fortnight.
Walking through the gardens of the American Academy in Rome at 6:30 on a February morning, on my way to do the daily inventory, I would catch fleeting smells in the cold air: mimosa, petitgrain from the bitter orange leaves, artichokes, and (if I crouched right down with nose sniffing the ground) tiny violets.
Mimosa is the real heartbreaker for me, though; it always looks like the sun is shining on it, and seems like a joyful sign from our old pal Mother Nature that spring is on the way.
This ice cream hints at the warm, dry, powdery fragrance of mimosa blossom, and has a confetti of rice and orange peel strewn though its creamy yellow custard base.
20 g/2 tablespoons arborio rice
110 g/½ cup sugar, plus 1 heaping tablespoon
500 ml/2 cups water
Pared zest of 1 Seville orange
300 ml/1¼ cups whole milk
300 ml/1¼ cups heavy cream
Pinch of sea salt
3 egg yolks
50 g/2 oz mimosa blossom
1 heaping tablespoon bitter orange marmalade, finely chopped
1. To make the rice: put the rice, 1 heaping tablespoon of sugar, the water, and long strips of Seville orange zest into a pan and bring to a boil. Simmer until the rice is very tender, about 25 minutes.
2. Drain the rice thoroughly, discarding the strips of orange zest, and spread it out on parchment paper on a platter or baking sheet to cool in a single layer. Once cold, place the platter in the freezer—the reason for doing this is so that the grains of rice freeze individually and not in a big clump. Once the grains are frozen you can scrape them into a zip-top bag and store this in the freezer.
3. To prepare the ice cream: heat the milk, cream, and salt together in a non-reactive pan, stirring often with a whisk or silicone spatula to prevent it from catching. Once the liquid is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and remaining ½ cup sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
4. Pour the hot milk and cream over the yolks in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs, and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, remove from the heat, add the mimosa blossom, and stir to submerge, then cover the pan with plastic wrap and place into a sink of ice water to cool. Stir every so often to speed the cooling process along. Once the custard is at room temperature, scrape it into a clean container along with the mimosa, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge.
5. To make the ice cream: the following day, use a small ladle to push the custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean container. Squeeze hard to extract as much flavor as possible, then discard the mimosa and blitz the custard for 1 minute using an immersion blender.
6. Pour the custard into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
7. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container, sprinkling in the frozen rice and swirling spoonfuls of chopped marmalade as you go. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a week.
East Street Market is a long-standing historical place of trade in southeast London, where I have lived for nearly 20 years. It’s famous for being cheap and for being situated in quite a dreary location: Elephant and Castle—for years an ignored arse-end of London sliced up by bad town planning, a massive roundabout, a painted pink concrete shopping center, and a whole lot of traffic grinding its way into London from Kent.
One person’s eyesore can be another person’s eye candy, though, and this market rewards further examination. Among the vendors selling broken biscuits, slippers, and mobile phone chargers, there are stalls selling cheap bowls of overripe or B-grade fruits and vegetables and huge bunches of fresh herbs. It’s the place to go if you want to buy a bowl of 20 juicy limes for a pound—just a minute away on the high street you could spend the same amount on three over-packaged rock hard ones.
At the far end of the narrow street is the proprietor of my favorite stall: Mango Man. A man so choosy about his fruit he will go to great pains to select the perfect piece for you to eat that day, likewise the mango that will be perfect in two days time. I don’t tell him that the fruit I want is destined for sorbet because I don’t think he’d sell it to me…it’s too precious to be squished. One time, shopping for a bunch of different tropical fruits for a kid’s birthday party, I made the mistake of telling him I was making kebabs. His eyes registered an appalled pity I didn’t forget for a while…Mango Man believes the only way to treat a perfectly ripe fruit is with a squeeze of lime to lift the flavor and balance the sweetness—anything else is somewhat disrespectful.
My dad was a tropical fruit lover too. One of the only pieces of good advice I ever remember him giving me was that the best way to eat a mango is in the bath. When I was small he would sometimes bring home brown paper bags of fruits that were quite exotic for suburban Twickenham and hide them in his bookshelves to ripen. In my memory or perhaps imagination his dusty paperback collection still smells faintly of cigarette ash and guavas. Perhaps this is why I am so fond of Mango Man. In any case, nowadays I have come to agree with them both—which is why there almost wasn’t a recipe for mango sorbet…
My favorite way to eat mango is to keep it in the fridge before serving, then peel, pit, and slice it perfectly with a sharp knife before drenching it with lime. There’s a disclaimer, though, which is that Mango sorbet, sandwiched with Banana, Brown Sugar, and Rum ice cream (this page) and piled with whipped cream and meringues, is one of the greatest ice cream cakes there is—enough validation for including a recipe here.
155 g/¾ cup sugar
285 ml/1 cup water
2½ small ripe Alphonso or Kesar mangoes or 3 medium St. Julian mangoes, chilled
2 limes, chilled
1. To prepare the sorbet: first warm the sugar and 155 ml/⅔ cup of the water together in a pan to make a simple syrup. Set aside to cool and then chill in the fridge until needed. (Alternatively, chill the syrup by putting the pan into an ice water bath.)
2. Peel and pit the mangoes and chop the flesh. Weigh out 350 g/12 oz cubed mango flesh and place in a bowl or in a blender.
3. Add the grated zest of the limes, the simple syrup, and remaining ⅓ cup water. Juice the limes, then measure out 90 ml/⅓ cup lime juice and add this to the mango. Liquidize for a minute or two until completely smooth.
4. Using a small ladle, push this mixture through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois. Squeeze hard to extract as much smooth purée as possible. Discard the remaining fibers and zest.
5. To make the sorbet: pour the purée into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and creamy-looking, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Scrape the sorbet into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Note—Using cold mangoes and limes from the fridge means you can churn this sorbet straightaway—it won’t require pre-chilling.
I love a lot about papaya. It’s so good for you—bursting with vitamins and enzymes—I can feel it making me a better person as I eat it. It’s also one of my favorite fruits to prepare: laying it lengthwise like a great big beautiful fish and slicing smoothly through its middle to reveal trout-pink insides and a belly of shining seeds like caviar. If only it wasn’t for its particular smell—is it just me or does it remind you of baby barf?
Only after a good drenching in acid can you really enjoy papaya properly. A generous squeeze of lime juice and a liberal dose of pungent, freshly grated zest benefit its coolly vegetal, delicate flavor, while erasing the more nauseating aspect of its personality.
This sorbet is super-quick and easy to make, and has a green, refreshing burn from the fresh chile at the end. It should be churned immediately to retain the fresh flavors. Great for breakfast on a hot day, or paired with other sorbets such as Pineapple and Lemongrass (this page), Passion Fruit Sour (this page), or Mango (this page).
175 g/1 cup sugar
175 ml/1 cup water
550 g/1¼ lb ripe papaya (about 1 medium papaya), chilled
3 limes
½ fresh long green chile (a medium-hot variety—not bird’s eye!), roughly chopped, with or without seeds
Small pinch of sea salt
1. To prepare the sorbet: first warm the sugar and water together in a pan to make a simple syrup. Set aside to cool and then chill in the fridge until needed. (Alternatively, chill the syrup by putting the pan into an ice water bath.)
2. Cut the papaya in half and peel it carefully with a small, sharp knife. Scrape out the seeds and keep these to one side. Cube the flesh and place in a bowl or in a blender.
3. Add the cold syrup to the papaya, then grate the lime zest into the bowl. Juice the limes, measure out 80 ml/⅓ cup juice and add this, the chopped chile, the salt, and a teaspoon of the papaya seeds (see Note).
4. Liquidize really well until the mix seems very smooth, at least 2 minutes. If you are using the papaya seeds, go straight to the next step. Otherwise, use a small ladle to push the purée through a fine-mesh sieve, discarding any fibrous bits or chunks of chile.
5. To make the sorbet: pour the purée straight into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen, thick, and luxurious, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Scrape the sorbet into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a fortnight.
Note—Papaya seeds are edible too, and taste like peppery cress. Adding a spoonful of them to the papaya flesh before liquidizing can add an interesting crunch to the sorbet, and more of a savory flavor.
Passion fruits have a surprise inside! Their crinkly dull skins disguise highly scented, enticing pulp. They are dependable, too—easily available and can be relied upon to yield rich, tropical flavor.
This sorbet is very easy to make and delivers a high-impact sweet ’n’ tart flavor. It’s a real crowd-pleaser.
180 g/1 cup sugar
200 ml/1 cup water
2 large oranges
8 ripe passion fruit (choose large, deeply wrinkled fruit)
1. To prepare the sorbet: heat the sugar and water together in a pan, stirring to dissolve the grains of sugar. As soon as the syrup starts to simmer, remove it from the heat.
2. Rinse the oranges, then pat dry and grate the zest of one of them directly into the hot syrup. Set aside to cool.
3. Cut the passion fruit in half horizontally and use a teaspoon to scrape the seeds and pulp of each half into a clean bowl. Weigh this—you should have about 180 g/6 oz of pulp.
4. Squeeze the juice of both oranges over the passion fruit and then add the strained cold sugar syrup (discard the zest). Liquidize the lot together for 3 to 4 minutes until the passion fruit seeds have broken down somewhat (leave these in the finished sorbet for texture) and the mixture is frothy and slightly milky-looking. Cover the mixture and put in the fridge until chilled, 2 to 3 hours.
5. To make the sorbet: once cold, whisk the mixture in case it has separated, then pour it into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until thick and frosty-looking, 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Scrape the sorbet into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Passion Fruit Sour (this page) / Papaya, Green Chile, and Lime (this page) / Pineapple and Lemongrass (this page) /Mango (this page)
This sorbet deserves its own party. Once churned, it turns the color of 1950s melamine, and the flavor combination is so startling that people’s eyes bulge when they taste it.
Inspiration came from traveling with my sister in northern Brazil. We were two little idiotic backpackers—and found ourselves in a hippie town called Lençóis, where the local speciality was carrot pizza. For breakfast in our hostel we were given an otherworldly pineapple juice, flecked with a green leaf I didn’t recognize. Further investigation by a local food detective (me) found it had been blended with the blade-like leaves of fresh lemongrass from the garden.
If you don’t grow your own lemongrass, then fortunately the shop-bought stalks work as well—just make sure they are fresh.
Choose your pineapple with as much care as you would a friend; sometimes I sniff three or four pineapples before I find the sweetest.
Pineapple contains an enzyme that allows this sorbet to incorporate more air into it than other fruits would while being churned. The results produce a beautiful canary-yellow, creamy sorbet.
Serve it in shot glasses with a splash of tequila or rum, or with rum-soaked baba and whipped cream if you want to push the boat out somewhere really tropical.
1 medium pineapple, very ripe (smell it!)
3 lemongrass stalks
180 g/1 cup sugar
180 ml/1 cup water
Zest and juice of 2 limes
1. To prepare the sorbet: slice the top and the bottom away from the pineapple. Stand it upright on its bottom end and remove the rough skin in vertical slices, cutting from top to bottom. Don’t worry if some little “eyes” remain—these will be sieved away later.
2. Following the central line of its core (again from top to bottom), cut the pineapple into four pieces, then remove the lengths of core from each quarter and keep them to one side. Starting with the flower end (see this page) cube the pineapple flesh and weigh out exactly 560 g/20 oz (or 1½ lb); place this in a bowl or in a blender.
3. Using a sharp, heavy knife, finely chop the lemongrass. Use the whole stalk, but please be careful of your fingertips.
4. Add the sugar, water, pineapple cores (not the cubed flesh), and lemongrass to a pan and bring to a simmer, stirring carefully to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat, cover, and leave the syrup to cool in an ice water bath.
5. Pick the pineapple cores out of the syrup and discard (although these are yummy to chew on). Add the lime zest and juice and the syrup to the pineapple cubes, and leave to macerate in the fridge for 3 hours, until completely cold.
6. To make the sorbet: remove the mixture from the fridge and blitz very thoroughly for a minute or two. Push the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve, squeezing to extract as much flavor as possible from the fibrous bits. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen, billowy, and creamy-looking, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
7. Transfer the sorbet into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Ice cream in Brazil is called sorvete (pronounced “sore-ve-chee”) and comes in a misty tropical rainbow of colors, mirroring the unbelievable range of delicious ripe fruit that is available. It’s also really fun to buy: your flavor of choice is scooped onto little scales and sold by weight—a nice touch evoking gemstones, gold, “pharmaceuticals,” and equally precious goods.
Brazilian ice creams are sometimes water-based like regular sorbet—only thickened with tapioca starch so they don’t melt too quickly in the heat. Otherwise (because fresh dairy is difficult to come by), fruit is mixed with condensed milk and crème de leite—a thin ultra-pasteurized cream commonly available tinned or in cartons.
As well as the more unusual indigenous fruits—like the tiny, juicy siriguela, which has thin edible skin and sour mango-like insides, and jabuticaba, which could best be described as a big, crunchy, peppery blackcurrant from outer space, my go-to choice was always flowery flavored, granular guava.
For this sorbet, guava is blended with rapadura sugar—the taste reminds me of the rich flavor of cachaça, a Brazilian alcohol distilled from sugarcane that forms the basis of drinks like caipirinha—and lime, and it’s a pretty irresistible combination. Softest pale pink and almost alarmingly aromatic, with a texture somewhere between coconut ice and fudge, it’s an evocative taste of the tropics.
250 ml/1 cup water
130 g/¾ cup rapadura whole cane sugar or coconut sugar (available from most health food shops)
4 ripe guavas (about 450 g/1 lb total weight)
Zest and juice of 2 limes
1. To prepare the sorbet: heat the water and the rapadura sugar together in a small non-reactive pan over low heat. Stir to dissolve the grains of sugar and bring to a simmer.
2. Rinse the guavas, then slice away the flower and stem ends before roughly chopping the fruit into medium chunks. Add this to the warm cane syrup along with any juice.
3. Simmer the fruit very gently until the guava is opaque and perfectly tender, 4 to 5 minutes; remove from the heat. Stir in the grated lime zest and set aside to cool. Once cold, cover and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours (or overnight) until chilled.
4. To make the sorbet: add the lime juice to the cold guava and blend the whole lot with an immersion blender until as smooth as possible. Push the purée through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois to remove the many rock-hard seeds.
5. Pour the purée into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and thick and snowy, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Transfer the sorbet to a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Note—Guavas are at their best when they are very ripe. Let them sit at room temperature in the kitchen for a few days, or until the fruit smells very pungent and yields to gentle pressure from your fingers.
Tropical fruits are an old-fashioned embodiment of real luxury to me, and tamarillo is a quintessential tropical fruit. Strange and wondrous, it shares the pungency of guava and the sharpness of passion fruit with a hint of raw tomato. Look for really ripe squashy ones in ethnic markets. The sumptuous orchid-colored ice cream they produce really is rather special.
150 ml/½ cup whole milk
250 ml/1 cup heavy cream
3 large egg yolks
160 g/¾ cup sugar
550 g/19 oz very ripe tamarillo
1. To prepare the ice cream: heat the milk and cream together in a non-reactive pan. Stir often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching. When the milk is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
2. As the liquid reaches the simmering point, pour it in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking constantly. Make sure the yolks are well combined with the liquid, then return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F. Stir constantly to avoid curdling the eggs and keep a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, place the pan of custard in a sink of ice water and leave to cool, stirring occasionally, to speed up the cooling process. Once the custard is at room temperature, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge overnight, or for at least 8 hours.
3. To make the ice cream: halve the tamarillo and, using a spoon, scrape out the ripe flesh into a bowl or the jug of a blender. Add the cold custard and liquidize both parts together until very smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Use a small ladle to push the purée through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois and remove the seeds.
4. Pour the custard into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until thick and frozen and the texture of whipped cream, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
5. Transfer the ice cream to a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
The world’s best banana ice cream is from Argentina, where pretty much all ice creams are based upon dulce de leche—a kind of soft toffee made from the long condensing of milk and sugar. Condensed milk is used heavily in ice cream production in South American countries, as fresh cream is difficult to come by. Dulce de leche lasts forever, has more than twice the protein of milk, and works wonders on the texture of ice cream—giving it a hint of saltiness, great structure, and “chew.” A perfect match for banana!
Nowadays my preference is for less sweet ice creams, so I’ve given two options for the recipe following. Made with dulce de leche the ice cream is slightly more caramelized; the other, using muscovado sugar, tastes moderately “cleaner.” Both are over-the-top banana and totally delicious. Have faith in putty-colored ice creams.
2 very ripe medium bananas
2 tablespoons dark rum
2 heaping tablespoons dulce de leche or 25 g/2 tablespoons muscovado sugar
150 ml/½ cup whole milk
250 ml/1 cup heavy cream
Pinch of sea salt
2 egg yolks
85 g/½ cup sugar
1. To prepare the ice cream: slice the bananas thinly into a pan, add the rum and either dulce de leche or muscovado sugar, and heat over medium heat until the bananas collapse and the sugars melt and start bubbling, stirring constantly. Allow it to bubble gently for about 10 minutes to cook the alcohol off, then scrape the contents into a bowl and cool before chilling in the fridge.
2. Heat the milk, cream, and salt together in a non-reactive pan. Stir often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching. Once the milk is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
3. Pour the hot milk in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, place the pan in a sink of ice water to cool it down—speed up the cooling process by stirring it every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, pour it into a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge.
4. To make the ice cream: the following day, add the chilled banana mix to the cold custard and liquidize with an immersion blender until as smooth as possible. Using a small ladle, push the banana custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container to remove any remaining lumps.
5. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Note—The dulce de leche version is very good with a handful of chopped raw walnuts sprinkled in at the end, too.
In Rome, on the 14th of February (also known as La Festa di San Valentino) there is not a strawberry—let alone a chocolate-dipped strawberry—in sight. Instead the fruttivendolo displays trays of friendly-looking brown kiwi fruit, and caffè windows are piled high with bright oranges.
In 2007, when I worked at the American Academy in Rome, I had a boyfriend—a beautiful rock musician who wore high heels. We met in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere on Valentine’s Day and he gave me a box of kiwi fruit, then we kissed and drank freshly squeezed blood orange juice mixed with Campari.
I proceeded to eat peeled kiwi fruit every day for breakfast until I got gingivitis from the acidity and my gums started bleeding and I had to run, crying in pain, to the hospital in the middle of the night. In the completely deserted wards of the Ospedale Fatebenefratelli on the Isola Tiberina, I had my mouth inspected by a lone doctor wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots under his scrubs. He was listening to the Pet Shop Boys on a loud Walkman. My mouth was so sore I could not eat or drink for four days, and it had to be treated with silver nitrate. My boss, Mona, did not hide her deep suspicion that I caught something from my boyfriend and would not come within six feet of me. I slowly recovered, and began to be able to sip raw egg and Marsala milkshakes at Pascucci’s on Via di Torre Argentina.
The only moral of this story is that sometimes Italy is too much and I try to guzzle it all in too quickly, but—with a kiwi at least—a warning that a little moderation is a good thing.
I always assumed kiwi fruits were subtropical, and was surprised to see so many in Rome. It turns out that in the 1930s Mussolini had the swampy soil around Lazio drained to create new farmland and “encouraged” everybody to grow them; they took to the new sandy soil surprisingly well. Italy is now the world’s biggest producer of kiwi fruit!
If you want to preserve the bright green color of the fruits in this sorbet, you can make it using white sugar. Another tip for retaining the color is to churn the sorbet immediately after making. Use chilled kiwi fruit straight from the fridge so your mix is already cold when you pour it into the ice cream machine.
The best pairing for this sherberty lip-smacking sorbet is a rice ice cream, made using the recipe on this page but flavored with ground cinnamon (the mimosa and marmalade left out). The soft, milky nuggets offset the sorbet’s bracing green sourness nicely.
100 g/½ cup sugar
100 ml/½ cup water
700 g/1½ lb firm, ripe kiwi fruit, chilled
Juice of 1 lemon or lime
1. To prepare the sorbet: heat the sugar and water together in a pan to make a simple syrup, stirring to dissolve the grains of sugar. As soon as the syrup starts to simmer, remove it from the heat. Set aside to cool, then chill in the fridge until completely cold.
2. Top and tail the kiwi and cut away the woody bit at the stem end. Stand the halves cut-side down on a chopping board and cut away the furry skin, removing as little flesh as possible. Slice into quarters.
3. Liquidize the kiwi quarters with the lemon juice and the cold simple syrup. Use a small ladle to push the purée through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois. Save a couple of tablespoons of the seeds and add these back to the purée. (Don’t be tempted to skip the sieving, though; otherwise the sorbet will end up looking gray.)
4. To make the sorbet: pour the frog-green purée into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and thick and creamy-looking, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
5. Transfer the sorbet to a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
This ice cream is prettiest when made with the slim stalks of forced rhubarb from Yorkshire’s magic “Rhubarb Triangle.” The candy-pink sticks transform into clouds of ice cream the color of bubblegum.
There’s more to this ice cream than just retro appeal. The light, earthy flavor of the rhubarb is set off with a tart twist of raspberry syrup.
150 g/¾ cup frozen raspberries
220 g/1 cup sugar
500 g/1 lb rhubarb
Zest and juice of 1 orange
150 ml/½ cup whole milk
200 ml/1 cup heavy cream
Pinch of sea salt
3 egg yolks
1. To make the raspberry syrup: if you have a microwave, put the berries into a heatproof bowl with 60 g/¼ cup of the sugar and simply blast them for a minute or two, or until the fruit is very lightly cooked. Otherwise put into a pan with a tablespoon of water and simmer just until the raspberries soften and collapse and the sugar dissolves.
2. Once cooked, leave the berries to cool, then blitz them with an immersion blender. Push the purée through a sieve to remove the seeds, squeezing hard to extract as much fruit as possible. Save the seeds for pip juice (see this page), let the syrup cool, and then chill it in the fridge overnight (which will thicken the syrup considerably).
3. To make the rhubarb: rinse the rhubarb, top and tail the stalks, then slice into 3 cm/1-inch-long pieces and place these into a non-reactive pan or heatproof bowl and add the orange zest and juice. Cook very gently until the fruit collapses, either on the stove, or in a microwave. If using a pan, keep a lid on and shake the pan every so often to prevent it from sticking. It should take 10 to 15 minutes, or 2 to 3 minutes covered with plastic wrap in a microwave. Try to avoid boiling the rhubarb, as with a sudden “ploof!” it will quickly become pale stewed mush. Leave to cool completely and then chill in the fridge.
4. To prepare the ice cream: heat the milk, cream, and salt together in a non-reactive pan. Stir often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching. When the milk is hot, whisk the egg yolks and remaining 160 g/¾ cup sugar together until combined.
5. As the milk reaches the simmering point, pour it in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking all the time. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring constantly to avoid curdling the eggs; keep a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, remove the pan from the heat and place in a sink of ice water to cool—you can speed up the cooling process by stirring it every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge.
6. To make the ice cream: add the chilled rhubarb to the cold custard and liquidize until absolutely smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Push the rhubarb custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container, discarding any leftover fibers.
7. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
8. Working quickly, transfer the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Do this in layers, adding a generous layer of chilled raspberry syrup each time, then swirling with a spoon for a marbled effect. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Note—Cooked rhubarb always benefits from sitting in the fridge overnight…it seems to intensify and draw out the beautiful pink juice.
Trying the flavor of blackcurrant leaves for the first time is almost like finding out that a new color exists (see Leafy Blackcurrant Custard, (this page). It’s a singular perfume…a bit like tart hard candy…a bit like green leaves…reminiscent of exciting chemicals.
If this sounds weird, don’t let it put you off. It’s delicious enough to be up there as a fourth flavor—strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla pale in comparison.
200 g/1 cup sugar
420 ml/1⅔ cups water
30 g/1 cup blackcurrant leaf tips, freshly picked and rinsed (or see Variation, this page)
4 lemons, ideally unwaxed Amalfi
1. To prepare the water ice: gently heat the sugar and water together in a small pan to make a syrup, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Bring this syrup to a simmer, then remove it from the heat and add the blackcurrant leaves. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and leave the syrup to cool in an ice water bath for about half an hour.
2. Zest and juice the lemons. Measure out 250 ml/1 cup of the juice (I’m sure you’ll find something to do with any that’s left over), then add this and the zest to the cool syrup. Stir then strain through a fine-mesh sieve, squeezing to extract as much liquid as possible from the blackcurrant leaves. Chill in the fridge.
3. To make the water ice: once the mix is chilled, give it a good stir and then pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of slushy snow, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
4. Scrape the water ice into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Note—This is a water ice rather than a sorbet, as it doesn’t have the “body” provided by a fruit purée. It will naturally be icy and a little “melty,” but intensely refreshing.
Variation—Make a deliciously refreshing Bunch of Fresh Herbs sorbet by replacing the blackcurrant leaves with 30 g/2 tablespoons fresh soft green herbs or blossoms of your choice. I like to experiment with dill, parsley, basil, chervil, mint, or anise hyssop. Even a few honeysuckle, calendula, or sweet pea blossoms make a nice addition (maybe not chives). Chop them up finely and add to the hot sugar syrup, then steep for 20 minutes in an ice bath before straining out and proceeding as above.
Alternatively, omit the blackcurrant leaves entirely and follow the method previous to make a classic lemon sorbet. It’s nice to add the fresh zest of 1 lemon to the mix before churning for visual appeal—otherwise real lemon sorbet has the misfortune to look like mashed potatoes.
Peach leaves appear to be completely flavorless until they are scalded in hot milk for a very specific amount of time (see Note). At this point they deliver their extraordinary hidden characteristic—the flavor of crisp toasted almond biscuits. Wow your party guests by live demo-ing this ice cream for them. Wow yourself every time you make it at home!
Getting ahold of the leaves may prove tricky—I buy bags of them from a stall at Brixton farmers’ market, where amazingly a few small knobby (and slightly green) Sussex-grown peaches are sold each summer. Or find your own tree: peach trees are notoriously difficult to bear fruit, but if you find someone who has a tree they are unlikely to miss a dozen or so leaves if you ask nicely.
This recipe employs the use of a simple milk base, thickened with natural vegetable starch so as not to interfere with the pure taste of peach leaf. A surprising and refreshing ice, delicious with a side of lightly sugared, sliced stone fruit.
160 g/¾ cup sugar
15 g/1 tablespoon tapioca starch or cornstarch
500 ml/2 cups whole milk
150 ml/¾ cup heavy cream
15 to 20 fresh peach leaves (or see Variations, following)
1. To prepare the milk ice: prepare a sink full of ice water, and set a timer to 3 minutes. Have a clean bowl ready with a fine-mesh sieve set over it. In a bowl, whisk 2 tablespoons of the sugar into the tapioca starch or cornstarch.
2. Heat the remaining sugar with the milk and cream in a pan over low heat, stirring often with a whisk or silicone spatula to prevent it from catching. Once the liquid is hot and steaming, pour it into the bowl containing the starch. Whisk constantly to combine it well without lumps forming.
3. Return all the mix to the pan and cook it over low heat, whisking constantly, just until it starts to simmer. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the peach leaves, then cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap and place it in the sink full of ice water to cool. Start the timer.
4. After exactly 3 minutes remove the pan and pour the mix through the sieve. Squeeze hard to extract as much flavor as possible from the peach leaves. You should see a tint of pale acid green seep into the mix with the last squeezes. Discard the remaining leaves.
5. Return the pan to the sink to cool completely before covering and chilling in the fridge overnight.
6. To make the milk ice: the following day, liquidize the peach leaf mixture with an immersion blender for 1 minute to help liquefy the mix.
7. Pour the mix into an ice cream machine. Churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
8. Scrape the milk ice into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. This ice will keep for a few days, but is best eaten right away—as the recipe contains no egg yolk and very little cream, it freezes quite hard and can become icy otherwise.
Note—It’s vital that you use a timer for this so the peach leaves are steeped for no more than 3 minutes precisely—any longer and the flavor changes completely to that of overripe compost.
Variations—Make a clean and pure-tasting Fig Leaf Milk Ice by following the previous recipe and replacing the peach leaves with 2 large or 3 small fresh fig leaves.
Make Pea Pod Milk Ice by simmering 350 g/¾ lb shelled pea pods for 3 to 4 minutes in the milk and cream mixture (before you add the starch), then blitz with an immersion blender and strain before returning the mix to a clean pan. Bring to a steaming point and then pour over the starch in the bowl and continue as above.
In Puglian dialect this variety of fig is known as culummi bianchi (from the Italian word for dove—colomba), because of their resemblance to the fat baby doves or pigeons that are known for their habit of plopping out of trees in springtime. This fruit is born from the first flowering of the tree and it signals the beginning of the fig season.
Pigeon figs, or ficione, have pale, waxy green skins that look as though they were made of painted marzipan, and fresh pink insides—a lot less sweet than the stickier settembrini fig and other late summer varieties. By virtue of their tender skins, they can be eaten whole. I love their cool, fresh, rainy flavor, and set it off with a rich, eggy custard base and the light pine-y addition of Pineau—a young, fortified wine aperitif made from grape must and Cognac. Very fancy served next to Green Walnut ice cream (this page) and Fig Leaf and Raspberry sorbet (this page).
500 g/1 lb first flower figs (use tinned green figs if you cannot find them, and rinse the syrup off first)
150 ml/½ cup whole milk
250 ml/1 cup heavy cream
3 egg yolks
135 g/⅔ cup sugar
50 ml/¼ cup Pineau des Charentes
1. To prepare the ice cream: check the figs over, rinse if necessary and trim away the very tops of their stalks (if attached).
2. Cook the whole figs very gently with a couple of tablespoons of water until they are tender. The best way to do this is in a microwave on medium-high for 4 to 5 minutes, as they can’t burn. Otherwise use a pan with a tight-fitting lid to create steam, and cook over medium-low heat for about 12 minutes, shaking the pan often to make sure they aren’t sticking to the bottom. Pierce them with the tip of a sharp knife to check that they’re tender and piping hot all the way through. Leave to cool, then chill in the fridge.
3. Heat the milk and cream together in a non-reactive pan, stirring often with a whisk or silicone spatula to prevent it from catching. Once the liquid is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
4. Pour the hot liquid over the yolks in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs, and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, place the pan in a sink of ice water to cool—you can speed up the cooling process by stirring it every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, scrape it into a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge.
5. To make the ice cream: the following day, add the whole figs and the Pineau to the cold custard and liquidize with an immersion blender until as smooth as possible. Blend until the custard turns a creamy pale yellow, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a small ladle, push the fig custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container.
6. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
7. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Variation—Make a rich, dusky Black Fig and Marsala ice cream in the autumn using sweeter purple Turkish or settembrini figs, and blending them with a zabaglione-flavored custard made with Marsala. Follow the previous recipe and substitute the Pineau for a good dry Marsala.
Cooling angelica grows both wild and cultivated and can be harvested in May—by happy coincidence at just the same time that robust sticks of garden rhubarb are ready to pull from the damp spring soil. This leafy herb looks a bit like overgrown celery; it has a large flower head containing masses of aromatic seeds. Crush the long, hollow stalks to release the fresh medicinal odor (you might recognize it as being the main flavoring in chartreuse).
Verjuice (an acidic juice, made from pressed unripe grapes) brings clarity to this sorbet recipe and helps contribute a pleasing balance of sweet and sour. A perfect after-dinner sorbet: just keep tasting the syrup so it doesn’t get too strong, as a little goes a long way and it can start to smell like boiled peas if cooked too long. Delicious paired with Gariguette Strawberry ice cream (this page).
550 g/1¼ lb rhubarb
1 orange
120 g/½ cup fresh angelica (about 1 stem, 30 cm/1 inch long)
200 g/1 cup sugar
200 ml/1 cup water
75 ml/⅓ cup verjuice or lemon juice
1. To prepare the sorbet: rinse the rhubarb, top and tail the stalks, then slice into 3 cm/1-inch-long pieces. Place in a non-reactive pan or an ovenproof dish. Add a tablespoon of water and the zest and juice of the orange. Cover the pan with a lid (or if using an oven dish use tight-fitting foil). Cook on the stove over very gentle heat for about 20 minutes or in an oven preheated to 300°F for about 25 minutes until the rhubarb is tender. If using a pan, hold the lid tight and shake it gently every so often to prevent it from sticking. Once cooked, leave to cool completely and then cover and chill in the fridge overnight.
2. Trim any leaves from the stem of angelica. These are bitter and will spoil the flavor of the syrup. Slice the hollow stems into 1 cm/½-inch lengths.
3. Heat the sugar and water together in a pan over low heat, stirring to dissolve the grains of sugar. As the syrup reaches the simmering point, toss in the angelica. Remove from the heat, cover the pan with a lid or with plastic wrap, and place in a sink of ice water to cool. Take care not to boil the angelica syrup—it tastes like boiled peas if cooked too long. Once the syrup reaches room temperature place in the fridge to chill completely.
4. To make the sorbet: strain the angelica syrup over the rhubarb, discarding the leftover angelica. Add the verjuice and blend the rhubarb with an immersion blender until absolutely smooth. Push the purée through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container. Squeeze hard to extract as much purée as possible.
5. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until thick, creamy, and frozen, about 20 minutes.
6. Transfer the sorbet to a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Note—The width of angelica stems can vary hugely (especially if you pick them in the wild) from the root end, which can have the diameter of a roll of tape, to the pencil-slim tips. Select a length of the stalk just where it starts to become hollow. The wider parts are good for candying but the flavor would overwhelm this sorbet.
Fresh cherries are a treat to eat—sweet and sharp and juicy, with taut shiny skins that crack as you bite into them. But their flavor is hard to distinguish UNLESS they are of a sour variety. Don’t spoil beautiful ripe cherries by turning them into ice cream or sorbet. No matter how tenderly you treat them, your efforts will be wasted. Hold out to make Montmorency Cherry Sherbet instead.
If you can get hold of a Montmorency (or Griotte) cherry to take a bite, you’ll find it mouth-puckeringly sour and wretched. Only lightly cooking the fruit brings out the intense flavor you recognize from classic cherry candy or Cherry Coke. They taste fake!
Likewise, morello cherries are so clear and bright with such a plucky flavor; try contacting pick-your-own farms to seek them out.
This recipe constitutes a sherbet because of the addition of a splash of fresh cream—just enough to soften the sharpness. It’s the perfect recipe to serve blended with ice-cold Prosecco to make a sgroppino cocktail—especially if you can find a succulent Luxardo maraschino cocktail cherry to top it with.
450 g/1 lb Montmorency or morello cherries, pits in
150 g/¾ cup sugar
100 ml/½ cup water
Zest and juice of 1 unwaxed or Amalfi lemon
Splash of heavy cream
1 tablespoon Luxardo maraschino liqueur (optional)
1. To prepare the sherbet: leaving the pits in, lightly cook the cherries with the sugar and water. If you have a microwave, zap them in a heat-proof bowl for 4 to 5 minutes on high, until the fruit is lightly cooked. If not, cook it all in a small non-reactive pan just until the cherries burst and are piping hot. Allow to cool to room temperature.
2. Once the cherries are cool enough to handle, wash your hands and pit each one carefully using your fingers. Place the cherries and their syrup in a blender along with the lemon zest and juice, cream, and liqueur (if using). Liquidize until very smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Use the back of a small ladle to push the mix through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois. Cover the purée and chill in the fridge until completely cold, 2 to 3 hours.
3. To make the sherbet: pour the cherry purée into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and thick and creamy-looking, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
4. Scrape the sherbet into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Note—I like to cook cherries with their pits in, and pit them afterward. Just like cooking beef on the bone, it adds flavor—except it is a nicer, more almondy flavor!
In 2009 I was asked to make an ice cream to sell at the Art Car Boot Fair in London’s Bethnal Green. The theme that year was “recession special.” There were a lot of “credit crunchy” kinds of flavors going on among cake bakers, but I wanted to try and make a cheap milk ice out of pea pods (pods are popping with sweet fresh flavor but are usually thrown away, and that seems a shame to waste). I billed it as 100 pence ice cream and sold scoops for a pound a pop. It went down a storm and I still make it now in the summer—albeit a slightly more costly custard version. It’s delightful served with fresh strawberries or Gariguette Strawberry ice cream (this page) on the side, and a sprinkle of sea salt flakes.
400 g/1 lb very fresh peas in their pods
300 ml/1¼ cups whole milk
250 ml/1 cup heavy cream
Small pinch of sea salt
4 egg yolks
130 g/⅔ cup sugar
1. To prepare the ice cream: wash the peas in their pods and then shell them, reserving the pods. Blanch the fresh podded peas in boiling water for 30 seconds and then refresh them in ice water to preserve their color; drain and put them in the fridge, covered.
2. Heat the milk, cream, and salt together, stirring occasionally. As soon as the liquid reaches the simmering point, add the pea pods and simmer them for 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and blitz the pods and liquid with an immersion blender for a minute. Strain the mixture through a sieve, squeezing hard on the pods to extract as much flavor from them as possible. Discard the blitzed pea pods.
3. Wash the pan and pour the fragrant milk and cream mixture back into it. Bring to a simmer. Stir often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching. Once the liquid is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and the sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
4. Pour the hot liquid over the yolks in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F. Stir constantly to avoid curdling the eggs, and keep a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, place the pan in a sink of ice water to cool. Speed up the cooling process by stirring the mix every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, scrape it into a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge overnight.
5. To make the ice cream: the following day, add the blanched peas to the custard and liquidize with an immersion blender until it turns froggy green, 2 minutes. Use a small ladle to push the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve to ensure it is perfectly smooth.
6. Pour the custard into an ice cream machine. Churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
7. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Eat within a week.
Strawberry is a famous yet forgotten flavor, as we have become more familiar with the perceived aroma—the kind we recognize more from jelly or sweets or even lip balm than from the real thing.
This makes tasting homemade strawberry ice cream all the more special. Sweetness matched with juiciness and a fragrance that travels up the back of your throat and into your nose and memory so pleasingly.
Gariguette are a small, sweet variety of strawberry—the first, eagerly anticipated ones of the year, arriving sometime in late May. The best ones have a funny shape like a rabbit’s head and a soft “purple” fruit flavor. They are madly aromatic with an almost synthetic taste similar to that of wild strawberries. Failing these, look for any ripe, sweet-smelling variety that’s been grown for flavor rather than supermarket shelf life. I love big red Jubilees, too, although they come a bit later in the season.
Frozen redcurrants or a good tangy redcurrant jelly will improve the texture of this ice cream and give it body—strawberries can tend to be watery, even in peak season.
Try pairing a scoop of this with fresh Pea Pod ice cream (this page)—really, it works.
500 g/1 lb Gariguette or other in-season strawberries
200 g/¾ cup sugar
25 g/1 oz redcurrants or 1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly (optional)
150 ml/½ cup whole milk
250 ml/1 cup heavy cream
Small pinch of sea salt
4 egg yolks
1. To prepare the ice cream: dip the strawberries in cold water to rinse them briefly, and then lay them out on a clean dish towel to drain. Pull or slice away the green crown of leaves, removing the bare minimum of fruit. Slice the berries in half into a clean container.
2. Add half of the sugar and the redcurrants or redcurrant jelly (if using), and stir to combine. Cover the container and leave the fruits to macerate in the fridge overnight.
3. Heat the milk, cream, and salt together in a non-reactive pan, stirring often with a whisk or silicone spatula to prevent it from catching. Once the milk is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and the rest of the sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
4. Pour the milk in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, place the pan in a sink of ice water to cool it down—you can speed up the cooling by stirring it every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge.
5. To make the ice cream: the following day, add the chilled strawberries and any juice to the cold custard and liquidize for a couple of minutes until as smooth as possible. Using a small ladle, push the strawberry custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container, squeezing hard to extract the maximum smooth custard mix from the seeds.
6. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
7. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a couple of weeks.
How about this for a simple way to make a sorbet? Succulent pruneaux d’Agen are soaked in Earl Grey tea until soft and obliging, with a couple of vivid strips of orange peel to lift the flavor. A week or longer in the fridge not only gives these simple flavors time to harmonize, it also encourages the natural sugars within the fruit to create a saporous syrup. The soaked prunes are then simply pitted, blended, and churned into a sorbet of great delicacy.
This super-easy method of preparation, along with the fruit’s natural sweetness, waives any need for additional sugar, making this recipe suitable for diabetics. Try it with heavy cream laced with Armagnac, or with Buffalo Milk, Almond, and Amalfi Lemon (this page), Novellino Orange Jelly ice cream (this page), and hot chocolate sauce.
300 g/10 oz Agen prunes (or any other prune you prefer)
Pared zest of ½ orange
2 Earl Grey tea bags
600 ml/2½ cups freshly boiled water (from a kettle)
2 tablespoons sugar (optional, see Note)
1. To prepare the sorbet: arrange the prunes in a large cup or deep container, interspacing them with the strips of peel and the tea bags.
2. Measure out the boiled water, add the sugar (if using), and pour this over the prunes. Leave to cool, then cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for a week, turning them every day, or for up to a month.
3. To make the sorbet: pick through the prunes, remove the pits, and discard the strips of zest and tea bags. Liquidize the prunes and all the syrup until perfectly smooth, about 2 minutes.
4. Pour the mix into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions. Because the purée is quite thick it should take less time to churn than usual, about 15 minutes.
5. Scrape the sorbet into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze for an hour before serving.
Note—This sorbet is best eaten within a day or two. If you want to keep it for longer, you could add a couple of tablespoons of sugar to the hot tea mix, stirring to dissolve it before pouring it over the prunes. This will help prevent iciness.
Variation—Dried Blenheim Apricot and Chamomile Tea makes a sunny alternative to this recipe and can be used in just the same quantities. I like using a couple of strips of lemon in place of the orange in this case, too.
Prune and Earl Grey (this page) / Buffalo Milk, Almond, and Amalfi Lemon (this page)
As familiar to an English summer’s day as jam sandwiches and wasps, a good elderflower syrup needs to capture the ephemeral fragrance of the frothy cream-colored flowers. Commercially produced cordial kind of falls flat, and too often the homemade stuff is reminiscent of a cup full of hay fever when it’s made badly—and at its worst smells like cats’ pee—but there are tips for keeping it bright ’n’ breezy.
Pick elderflower heads first thing in the morning—just like the old wives’ tales say—when they are like clumps of fresh, white sea foam and free from the buzzing insects and pollution the day brings.
Steep the flowers in cold syrup and leave in a cool place over a few days; that way the flavor isn’t “cooked” and you’ll have better luck capturing the transient floral sweetness.
Citric acid helps to preserve the syrup and provides the necessary sharp contrast to what is otherwise too flowery.
Elderflower Syrup
20 elderflower heads
1 kg/5 cups sugar
1 kg/5 cups water
1 Amalfi or unwaxed lemon
1 heaping teaspoon citric acid
1. First thing in the morning, pick about 20 elderflower heads or fill a big bowl. Back in the kitchen, shake the flower heads free of any dust or insects. Using scissors, snip the sprigs of elderflower blossom into a clean, deep bowl.
2. Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a pan, stirring occasionally to make sure the sugar dissolves. Place the pan in a sink full of ice water to cool. Wash and slice the lemon and add this to the syrup along with the citric acid.
3. Once the syrup is cold, pour it and the lemon slices over the elderflowers, making sure they are fully submerged. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 4 days.
4. After 4 days, strain the syrup through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois, squeezing the elderflowers to extract as much flavored syrup from them as possible. Bottle and store the syrup in the fridge for up to 2 weeks (or freeze in a suitable container).
The fragrant combination of fresh strawberries and elderflowers is a revelation—flavorful, delicate, and pretty as a posy. The perfect summer dessert.
Whole Amalfi lemon is used to add flavor and pectin to the mix, improving the “body” of the sorbet. Amalfi lemons have softer, milder pith than normal lemons, making it possible to eat them this way.
550 g/1¼ lbs strawberries
300 ml/1¼ cups elderflower syrup (see following)
½ Amalfi lemon (or use ½ unwaxed lemon), chopped
1. To prepare the sorbet: rinse the strawberries and then lay them out on a clean dish towel to drain. Cut away the leaves, removing the bare minimum of fruit. Slice the berries in half into a clean container.
2. Add the elderflower syrup and the chopped lemon—juice and seeds and all—and liquidize together until perfectly smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a small ladle, pass the purée through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois. Squeeze hard to extract as much purée as possible, then discard the strawberry seeds and fibers. Chill the mix in the fridge for a couple of hours until completely cold.
3. To make the sorbet: pour the strawberry purée into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and creamy-looking, 20 to 25 minutes.
4. Transfer the sorbet to a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within 2 weeks.
Variation—Make a basic simple syrup with 190 g/1 cup sugar and 190 ml/¾ cup water, then use in place of the elderflower syrup to make an excellent Strawberry and Amalfi Lemon sorbet.
Novelty ice creams are fun to try the first time, but unless you want to lick the bowl clean they don’t get added to my list of favorites. Nobody needs to have uneaten ice cream languishing in the freezer getting fish finger-y and frosty. Freezer space is important—you need some room for peas and ice cubes too!
I promise, though, that this recipe is no fad. It’s the most refreshing and pacifying of all ice cream flavors—what could be cooler? It has become a summer tradition, looked forward to—and not just by me.
Salting the cucumber first draws out excess water, concentrates the flavor, and improves the texture of the ice cream. The salt should be barely discernable in the end result, though. Incredible combined with Strawberry Salad (this page) and Dill Seed ice cream (this page) or on its own on a really sweaty day.
1 medium cucumber (about 250 g/8 oz), homegrown or from a farmers’ market, if possible (less watery)
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
325 ml/1¼ cups whole milk
2 whole eggs
150 g/¾ cup sugar
300 ml/1¼ cups sour cream
1. To prepare the ice cream: first peel your cucumber—use a vegetable peeler to remove all the tough green skin. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and use a teaspoon to scrape out and discard the watery seeds. Dice the cucumber halves, then toss them in a bowl with the sea salt. Tip them into a colander in the sink to drip. After 20 minutes, rinse them briefly in a bowl of cold water and set on a clean dish towel to drain. Chill in the fridge in a lidded container overnight.
2. Heat the milk in a non-reactive pan. Stir often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching. Once the milk is steaming, whisk the whole eggs and sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
3. Pour the hot milk over the eggs in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs, and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, place the pan in a sink of ice water to cool. Add the sour cream to the custard and whisk it in—you can speed up the cooling process by stirring the mix every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, scrape it in a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge.
4. To make the ice cream: the following day the cucumber will have expelled more water; pour this away, then blitz the cucumber and custard together in a blender. Blitz for 2 to 3 minutes until very, very smooth—you don’t want any frozen lumps of cucumber in this ice cream. Use a small ladle to push the cucumber custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container.
5. Pour the custard into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of stiff whipped cream, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a week.
This is one of the first recipes for which I got to flex my ice cream muscles—testing it out at St. John Bread & Wine, where we served it with hot chocolate sauce. It’s a simple milk ice, thickened with tapioca or cornstarch (egg interferes with the fresh mint flavor, making it taste a bit too much like dinner), then briefly steeped with masses of fresh mint leaves.
Each time anyone ordered it at St. John, I’d send it out then peep over the counter to watch as they took the first taste—never getting bored of their surprised and happy reactions.
I’ve included the option of adding lightly toasted slivered almonds in this recipe—a very good suggestion my photographer Grant made when we were shooting the pictures for this book. They provide an irresistible crunchiness.
130 g/⅔ cup sugar
15 g/1 tablespoon tapioca starch or cornstarch
500 ml/1¾ cups whole milk
150 ml/¾ cup heavy cream
20 g/¾ oz fresh mint leaves, rinsed and picked
50 g/1¾ oz dark chocolate, grated
20 g/¾ oz toasted blanched slivered almonds (optional)
1. To prepare the milk ice: in a bowl, whisk 2 tablespoons of the sugar into the tapioca starch or cornstarch.
2. Heat the milk and cream with the remaining sugar, stirring often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching. Once the liquid is hot and steaming, pour it into the bowl containing the starch. Whisk constantly to combine it well without lumps forming.
3. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat, whisking constantly, just until it starts to simmer. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the mint leaves, then cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap and place it in a sink full of ice water to cool.
4. After 15 minutes, taste the thickened milk; if the flavor of mint is lively and pronounced, pass the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois, squeezing the leaves to extract as much flavor as possible. Otherwise, leave the mix to cool completely, another 10 to 15 minutes, before straining and discarding the leaves. Return the pan to the sink to cool completely before covering and chilling overnight in the fridge.
5. To make the milk ice: the following day liquidize the mix with an immersion blender for 1 minute to emulsify completely; this will also help liquefy the mix.
6. Pour the mix into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
7. Scrape the milk ice into a suitable lidded container, sprinkling with gratings of dark chocolate and slivers of almond as you go. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Note—This ice is best eaten within a week: the recipe contains no egg yolk and little cream, so it freezes hard and can become icy otherwise.
When I teach my class at The School of Artisan Food up in Nottinghamshire, we make up to a dozen different vanilla ice creams in a day—gelato, egg-free, no-cook, parfaits, “super premium,” raw milk, and aged recipes, to name a few. The idea is to gain an understanding of how various different methods and ingredients can affect the texture and flavor of ice cream.
It’s been interesting to note that in eight years of teaching this class, this simple vanilla ice cream recipe consistently wins the popular vote at the 5 p.m. tasting. It’s not the richest and it doesn’t use any complicated ingredients, but it has the fresh, creamy, smooth texture that everyone looks for in an ice cream, and is not too sweet.
It’s so called because I always liked the film Who’s That Girl, especially the bit where Madonna is asked: “What school did you go to—was it Swiss?” And she answers: “Yeah, the Swissest.” Since having my trusty Swiss ice cream machines, which—more than any other piece of equipment I’ve bought—have never let me down, Swiss has become a synonym for best.
1 vanilla pod
300 ml/1¼ cups whole milk
300 ml/1¼ cups heavy cream
Pinch of sea salt
3 large egg yolks
110 g/½ cup sugar
1. To prepare the ice cream: split the vanilla pod using the tip of a sharp knife, scrape out the seeds, and place both seeds and pod in a non-reactive pan with the milk, cream, and sea salt. Stir often, using a whisk or silicone spatula, to prevent it from catching. Once the liquid is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.
2. Pour the hot liquid over the yolks in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over low heat until it reaches 82°C/180°F, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, place the pan in a sink of ice water to cool. Speed up the cooling process by stirring the mix every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, transfer it into a clean container, cover with plastic wrap, and chill.
3. To make the ice cream: the following day, use a small ladle to push the custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container. Save the vanilla pod (you can rinse and dry it, then use it for vanilla sugar or homemade vanilla extract; see this page), then liquidize the cold custard with an immersion blender for a minute to emulsify.
4. Pour the custard into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, 20 to 25 minutes.
5. Transfer the ice cream to a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
Note—This recipe really does benefit from being “aged” (see this page) in the fridge overnight before churning. The texture will thicken and have better mouthfeel, and you get a warm long-lasting flavor from the vanilla pod.
A few years ago, late at night in bed and high on Italian eBay, I bought several thousand pounds worth of 1960s Italian ice cream machinery from a used catering-equipment salesman in northern Italy. I hired a van and undertook an insane 24-hour drive to Turin and back to bring the 2-ton machines to the UK. Once home, they sat, unfixable, in storage for approximately six years, quietly leaking thick black oil and defunct coolant over my garage floor until I sold them for scrap metal last summer.
The upside to this story was that en route home we stopped at a market in Lyon where I took advantage of every bit of negative space in the van and bought a stall’s entire stock of very ripe apricots to bring back with me. It made enough ice cream for that whole summer and it was extraordinarily good—the delicious but slightly poisonous marzipan flavor of the “noyau” or kernels acting as a bitter reminder against late-night eBay purchases.
About 375 g/13 oz fresh apricots
150 g/¾ cup sugar
150 ml/½ cup whole milk
200 ml/1 cup heavy cream
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon honey (optional)
1. To prepare the ice cream: slice the apricots in half and remove the pits; keep these to one side. Cook the apricot halves very lightly just until the fruit collapses. If using a microwave, place the fruit in a heatproof bowl with a tablespoon of water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and cook on high until tender, 2 to 3 minutes. Otherwise simmer the apricot halves gently in a non-reactive pan, just until they are cooked through and piping hot (do not boil). Cool in a sink of ice water, then cover and chill in the fridge.
2. Place a clean dish towel on a hard surface, then line the apricot pits up along the middle of the towel. Fold the dish towel in half over the apricot pits to cover them, and then firmly crack each pit with a rolling pin (the dish towel prevents bits of the shell from flying all over the kitchen). Try to hit hard enough to crack the shell, but not so energetically that you completely obliterate it—you want to be able to rescue the kernels from inside the shell afterward.
3. Pick the tiny kernel from each shell, then grind them in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder with 20 g/2 tablespoons of the sugar.
4. Heat the milk, cream, and the ground kernel mix in a pan, stirring often with a whisk or silicone spatula to prevent it from catching. As soon as the milk is hot and steaming, whisk the yolks with the remaining sugar and honey (if using) until combined.
5. Pour the hot liquid over the yolk mix in a thin stream, whisking constantly as you do so, then return all the mix to the pan. Cook gently over low heat, stirring all the time, until the mix reaches 82°C/180°F. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C/180°F, remove the pan from the heat and set it in a sink full of ice water to cool—you can speed up the process by stirring it every so often. Once entirely cold, pour the custard into a clean container, cover, and chill in the fridge.
6. To make the ice cream: the following day, use a spatula to scrape the chilled apricots into the custard, then blend together with an immersion blender until very smooth—blitz until there are only small flecks of apricot skin visible in the mix, at least 2 minutes. Using a small ladle, push the apricot custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container, squeezing hard to extract as much smooth custard mix as possible. Discard the bits of skin and kernel.
7. Pour the custard into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, usually 20 to 25 minutes.
8. Transfer the ice cream to a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of wax paper to limit exposure to air, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.
My Favorite Flavor
If I get asked what my favorite ice cream is—which happens quite often—the first thing I do is panic: my favorite…this week? Then I remember peach ice cream…
You rarely see peach ice cream offered as a scoop unless you happen to live in one of those peach tree–blessed states like California, South Carolina, or Georgia. Even when you do, it’s usually a plain white ice cream with frozen chunks of peach studded through, which leaves me feeling cheated. This is not my idea of peach ice cream.
I always remember being struck reading Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach at the bit when James crawls through a juicy peach tunnel to his new peach pit home, eating handfuls of sweet yellow peach flesh as he goes. This is what eating peach ice cream should be like—an all encompassing flavor that surrounds you—flavor that you can smell! Surround yourself with peach ice cream!
