CHAPTER THREE
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The Home Dairy
TACTILE, FUN AND IMMENSELY satisfying, turning your kitchen into a temporary dairy is not anywhere near as dramatic as it sounds, and can mean as little as using a bowl and a wooden spoon, right up to using all the kit and every inch of space you can muster to create your very own Cheddar-type cheese. If your interest lies in making a cooling milkshake, a healthy yoghurt or a stunning cheese board with hard and soft cheeses to share with family and friends, this is a zero-nonsense, stripped-down guide to home dairying and cheese-making that is a doddle to follow. Dairying is an essential skill in the self-sufficient kitchen.
An important aspect of the self-sufficient lifestyle, enabling us to enjoy a balanced diet, milk, cream, cheese and all their derivatives offer a tasty way of providing the calcium, proteins, fats and nutrients essential for a healthy body. Since humankind domesticated the second animal (the first was a dog, and nobody wanted to make cheese out of dog milk), we have been collecting milk and dabbling with dairy skills. From the Romans, who bathed in milk, to the French, who took the strength of cheese (not to mention the smell) to new heights, just about every region in the world has milk and cheese feature in their history, and very much in their present.
Dairying, in particular cheese-making, is first a science, and second – albeit a close second – an art that can be picked up and perfected by anyone in any walk of life. Once the basic methods have been grasped, it is possible to go on and make a copy of just about any variety of cheese, such as Cheddar, Edam, ricotta, feta, Brie, cottage cheese and, of course, Stilton. But the basics have to be mastered first. This chapter teaches those basics, with one or two examples of easy, stripped-down dairy recipes at each step of the way, from the simplest method of making cream cheese to the more taxing challenge of perfecting a hard cheese, all of which can be achieved in any kitchen. And it all begins with milk.
EQUIPMENT
Much of the equipment needed for small-scale dairy production will already be available in the kitchen of anyone who enjoys cooking, such as pots, pans and bowls, a food mixer or whisk, measuring jugs and sieves. Making hard cheese involves some more specialist equipment (see page 99).
MILK
Every mammal produces milk to suckle its young, from elephants to moles, but the dairy industry has really sprung up around those animals that can be reasonably domesticated, such as goats, sheep, buffaloes and cows. Of these, the cow takes centre stage. Cow’s milk is made up from millions of tiny particles of butterfat, on average about 12.5 per cent of the total, all kept in suspension away from one another in a solution of water. When we process milk in the dairy and make cream and butter and yoghurt and cheese, all we’re doing in effect is finding different ways to separate those butterfat globules from the water and bring them together.
But it’s the quality of that butterfat that will determine how good your dairy making will be. The creamier the milk, the more butterfat it will contain – on average cow’s milk contains 66kcal per 100g/3½oz whole milk, whereas human milk is higher, containing 72kcal in the same amount. The richness of the butterfat, and indeed the colour, is directly influenced by what the cow has been eating. For example, the milk from a cow fed on spring grass will have a greater number of fat globules, which tend to be larger (making the milk thicker), and will have that gorgeous creamy yellow colour taken from the green pigment carotene in the grass. This makes it ideal for butter making, though not quite as good for producing hard cheese.
Goat’s milk is not so easily influenced. The butterfat particles tend to be smaller in size and of a much lower percentage, only about 11 per cent, so the milk is skinnier – just 61kcal per 100 grams – and the colour whiter because goats don’t use carotene. Many people who find themselves allergic to cow’s milk are fine with goat’s milk.
Sheep’s milk, or ewe’s milk, is actually higher in butterfat, as much as 17 per cent, making it perfect for cheese-making (think feta, manchego and ricotta), but because of its size, the animal produces far less in a single sitting (or standing), and therefore it can be quite an expensive alternative and slightly more difficult to find.
But, and this is a big but, if you’re looking to be self-sufficient, there is nothing quite like having a house cow/goat/sheep and milking it yourself. Of course you need the land and all the other serious considerations such as time and effort, but the rewards are unbeatable! For the rest of us, there’s the supermarket, a health food shop, online or a really good deli, and don’t be put off by frozen milk for dairying as it does freeze really well and works fine.
CREAM
If you want cream for dairying rather than eating, many shops and stores now stock a really interesting variety of creams that are perfect for the job, such as the Channel Islands’ Jersey and Guernsey creams, which have a yellow tint to them and tend to be slightly richer due to the larger butterfat particles, making them perfect for things like butter making. Don’t buy flavoured cream or cream containing anything synthetic: whilst these may be good in your coffee, they don’t work for dairying.
BUTTER
Butter is just over-whipped cream. In fact, if you have ever over-whipped cream and ended up with a grainy liquid, the grains were butter and the liquid buttermilk – you were nearly there! All you had to do was continue to whip in order to bring more of the particles out and join them together to form butter.
In the old pre-gadget days before food mixers, it would be the dairy-maid’s responsibility to hand-churn cream into butter and she would often start at dawn by pouring the clabbered cream (the top of the milk that has naturally clotted together overnight) into a plunge-churn or barrel-churn, where she would work it by hand, keeping it in a perpetual state of movement for hour, after hour, after hour. Today we pour a carton of double cream into a food mixer and whisk it for long enough to skip to a new track on Spotify or send a quick text message.
(If you want to have a test run, just to see how the process works, try this method, which fascinates my niece and nephew. Sink a jam jar and lid in a bowl of boiling water for about 15 minutes to sterilize them, then remove and leave to cool. Half-fill the jar with double (heavy) cream. Secure the lid, wrap the jar in a tea towel and shake it vigorously. It takes a while, but eventually you get a distinctive d-doink sound of a small pat of butter forming inside.)
Before you start making butter, make sure the cream you’re about to use is a good few days old. If it’s shop bought, choose a double cream and only use it on or around its use-by date, as this makes it easier to work, gives a better yield and improves the flavour. (Many shops reduce the price of their fresh cream as it approaches the sell-by date. Buy it then: it’s cheaper and works just as well.) If you use 300ml/½ pint double cream (30 per cent butterfat plus), this will produce about 225g/8oz butter and 300ml/½ pint buttermilk. It is important to leave the cream out overnight at room temperature so it can ripen – a natural process whereby the bacteria will act upon the lactose sugar in the cream. (If the butter were being made commercially, a ‘starter’ would be added. You thought butter pats in the shops had to be pure without anything added? Sadly not – reason number 472 to make your own.)
Pour the cream into a food mixer and fit a flat-bladed whisk, for example the ‘k’ blade on a Kenwood. Before you turn the food mixer on, drape some kitchen roll or a scrupulously clean tea towel around the top of the bowl because it does splash! Start at a medium speed, but be prepared to reduce it low as soon as you start to feel and hear the butter forming. This is the agitation process that will start breaking down the cream into solid (butter) and liquid (buttermilk), and should take only a couple of minutes. When the separation starts, you will hear the splashing inside the bowl get thinner and faster as the fat globules are knocked out of the solution.
As soon as you hear the splashing sound made as butter and buttermilk separate, stop. Scrape the formed butter that has collected around the whisk into one piece, squidging it together and literally run it under the cold tap, turning it and turning it in your hand. This will clean the butter, although some of the buttermilk will remain. You need to remove as much of the buttermilk as possible because this will go off much faster than the butter and will spoil it. Therefore, place the butter on a board and take two wooden spoons, or Scotch hands (wooden butter beaters) if you have them, and pat the butter (which is where the phrase butter ‘pat’ came from) to remove as much milk as you can. As you pat it, you will see tiny pockets of milky liquid exploding free from the butter. Wash, gently knead and repeat this process until all the liquid has gone.
Use the butter as it is, or mix approximately ½ tsp flaked sea salt with every 225g/8oz/1 cup butter, or to taste. To make spreadable butter, put it back into the food mixer and add up to 100ml/3½fl oz/scant ½ cup light olive oil and beat again lightly until creamed together. This increases the volume and, by introducing unsaturated fat, dilutes the less-healthy saturated fats.
Now you can just pop on some toast and use the butter as is, or you can be a little experimental and daring, and flavour it. Flavouring butter is like putting make-up on a supermodel: it takes the gorgeous and makes it stunning. Next time you have a roast chicken, save some of the crispy skin, rip it up and smoulch it carefully with your hands into the butter, then wrap it in cling film, chill it and smother it on a slice of freshly baked bread or a side place of baked radishes. Try coconut and lime butter for a zing on noodles and fish; or add finely chopped chillies to butter and brush over roti bread or stir through basmati rice.
Buttermilk
Because most of the fat has been removed to make the butter, the liquid that remains is virtually fat-free natural buttermilk, with only about two-thirds of the calories of milk yet still high in potassium, vitamin B12 and calcium. It has a slightly sour, though pleasant, taste. Try using it in the following ways: chill and drink or pour over cereal; add to mashed potato; use it to make scones, soda breads or light and fluffy American-style pancakes.
Clarified butter (ghee)
The reason why clarified butter is used in cooking, and especially Indian-style cooking, is because all the impurities, which burn and turn bitter during cooking, have been removed during the clarification process and so it can be heated to a much higher temperature than ordinary butter. As well as being the starting point for a perfect homemade curry, it can also be used as a ‘lid’ for homemade pâté, to seal out the air and help preserve it.
To clarify butter, put some unsalted butter in a heavy-based saucepan and heat gently until it melts. Do not let it boil. The butter will start to separate into two layers: a clear layer on top and a milky one below. Carefully pour the clear layer off into a separate container, and there you have clarified butter.
YOGHURT
Making yoghurt in the home is often the first venture into controlled fermentation and the use of live, healthy cultures that anyone new to dairying makes. Surprisingly, many of the health benefits surrounding yoghurt come not just from the fact that it is full of goodness, but also because it is so easy for the body to digest and therefore all the goodness is easily absorbed.
To make live natural yoghurt, you need, ironically, 2 tsp live natural yoghurt to use as a starter, as well as 1.2 litres/2 pints/5 cups milk (skimmed, semi-skimmed or whole, goat’s, sheep’s or cow’s – all work well, although the higher the cream content, the thicker and creamier your yoghurt will be).
Put the milk in a heavy-based saucepan over a low heat and heat to 38–43°C/100–110°F to kill off any existing bacteria. Pour the milk into a wide-mouthed vacuum flask, stir in the live yoghurt, seal and leave overnight (or for 10–12 hours). In the morning, tip the yoghurt into a dish, loosely cover with a plate and chill in the fridge for a couple of hours to thicken, then it’s ready to eat as it is, or to add some flavouring. You can also stir it into curries and use it as an ingredient in naan breads.
As you become adept at making yoghurt and settle into a routine, you can simply keep a couple of spoonfuls from the last batch to create the next, so saving the need ever to buy yoghurt again. Alternatively, you can buy a commercial starter from a health-food shop. A starter, or culture, is essentially good bacteria, so this enables you to eliminate the bad and harmful bacteria acting on the milk and let in only the good. These healthy bacteria act on the lactose sugar in the milk, turning it into protein, which in turn curdles the milk into yoghurt, which is a mix of the curds and the whey. Yoghurt was probably what little Miss Muffet was eating, comfy on her tuffet, when the spider came and sat down beside her.
All yoghurts made with a live culture are probiotic, helping to establish and re-establish healthy gut flora, especially after a course of antibiotics, assisting in the prevention of gastrointestinal infections, improving our immune system and helping guard against infection.
Flavouring yoghurts
All fruit, fresh or canned, works well to flavour yoghurt, but soft fruit such as strawberries, raspberries and blackcurrants, hand-mushed with the back of a spoon and folded into the yoghurt, take a lot of beating. Stirring the yoghurt risks breaking the mixture back down into curds and whey, so try to minimize stirring and aim more for folding when you incorporate flavouring ingredients. If separation does occur, pour off the liquid whey and place the yoghurt back in the fridge to chill and set once again. Other flavourings include honey, nuts, muesli, raisins and sultanas (golden raisins), and avocado for use as a dip.
Frozen yoghurt
There are two main methods for creating this healthy alternative to ice cream: one involves churning, for which you will need to invest in an ice-cream maker, and the other involves still-freezing. This recipe is made in the still-frozen way, but both methods work equally well for yoghurt and ice cream.
Still-frozen yoghurt
You will need a spotlessly clean shallow roasting tin for this recipe. The reason for using a roasting tin is the fact that it’s wide and flat and will therefore have a big surface area that will chill the mixture down quickly, thus avoiding most of the ice crystals that form during slower freezing. The metal in the tin is also a wonderful conductor of temperature, again helping with the cooling process. A handy tip is to freeze the empty tin before use.
Pour 570ml/1 pint chilled natural yoghurt into the roasting tin, then place in the freezer for 20 minutes. Remove the tin, tip the mixture into a food mixer and blend until smooth, then return to the tin and the freezer. Repeat this procedure every 20 minutes for just under 1½ hours. After the final blending, sweeten the mixture with a little honey and add some fruit, nuts or the seeds from a vanilla pod, then blend again until smooth. Return to the tin once more, cover with cling film to prevent ice crystals forming, and pop in the freezer until frozen. Hey presto: frozen yoghurt!
CHEESE
Patience is a virtue,
Possess it if you can.
Seldom found in woman,
Never found in man.
(ANON.)
Unfortunately if you want to make truly great cheese you’re going to have to develop more than a little patience, because for some of the more distinctive cheese flavours, especially the hard cheeses, it can take several months, even years, before they’re mature enough to eat. But, oh boy, if you can, the rewards will make the wait well worth it!
Luckily, not all cheeses take a long time. In fact, curd and cream cheese can be made in no time at all, and in this stripped-down introduction to cheese-making, the emphasis is very much on maximum flavour and stylish results with as little effort as possible. The golden rules of cheese-making are to work through the stages in sequence, take it slowly, and build up to the more complicated, more taxing cheeses only after you have mastered the basics.
This section is like having your first driving lesson, where you learn clutch control, braking and acceleration. It will enable you to move the vehicle around, but you won’t be a driver until the subtleties sink in. The true art of cheese-making is all about those subtleties, and that will take years to learn. But, right now, just enjoy the freedom of stamping on the accelerator and producing tasty, classy cheese right out of your own kitchen.
CHEESE-MAKING EQUIPMENT
There are a few specialist items of equipment that will be needed, mostly for making hard cheese, such as a thermometer, a palette knife for cutting the curds and a double boiler. If you don’t already have a double boiler, you will need two saucepans (the smaller one with a lid) that can be stacked one inside the other so the inner rests on the outer’s handles without the bodies touching. The outer one can then be topped up with boiling water to produce a bath that will help keep the inner pan warm, and allow the milk to heat up evenly without scorching. Alternatively, but less ideal, use just one heavy-based saucepan over a low heat, but keep a watchful eye on the milk so it doesn’t catch. You will also need a cheese press to force out as much liquid from the cheese as possible and cheese moulds for shaping. (A homemade cheese press is simple to construct and works equally as well as anything you can buy; there are plans for one on page 104. Cheese moulds can be made or improvised, or found at speciality shops on the Internet.)
Basic ingredients
Milk: All pasteurized milk can be used – from cow’s to goat’s and sheep’s milk, whole or semi-skimmed – but, as a general rule, the richer the milk, the richer and creamier the cheese.
Starter: This is a live culture of harmless bacteria, usually a lacto-bacilli starter, which can easily be purchased in liquid or dry form at speciality shops, good health-food shops and online.
Rennet: Also known as a coagulant, rennet acts to curdle the milk into curds and whey and can, once again, be found at speciality shops, good health-food shops and online. (The standard rennet comes from the stomach lining of young animals, so if you want to make vegetarian cheese, you will need to look for vegetable-based alternatives.)
Salt: Fine sea salt and a good flaked salt.
Curd cheese
Curd or cottage cheese is a soft cheese that is neither pressed nor matured and retains a high level of moisture in the curd. It can be made with any type of milk, including goat’s and sheep’s milk, and the higher the fat content, the creamier the curd. If made with skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, it is therefore low in fat, making it popular with weight watchers.
This is probably the simplest cheese in the universe to make, and the most versatile, as it can be cooled and scattered on a salad, used warm with added chopped herbs such as chives or basil, and be the filling for cannelloni and ravioli (how about a really funky self-sufficient homemade ravioli filled with cottage cheese, stinging nettles or spinach, and a little nutmeg?) Also, because it is based on the Indian recipe for paneer, it will accept toasted spices really well and is ideal for stuffing naan bread. In addition, if pressed under a light weight for 6 hours, it can be sliced, then popped in a tub and marinated in olive oil, rosemary and garlic, which will also help to preserve the cheese.
Basic curd cheese
2.25 litres/4 pints/9½ cups whole milk
juice of 1 lemon
Pour the milk into a heavy-based saucepan and bring up to boiling point, then remove from the heat. Squeeze in the lemon juice and stir: the mixture will separate into curds and whey. Line a fine sieve with a muslin cloth, pour in the mixture and allow the whey to drain off. What’s left in the muslin is curd cheese. To shape, twist the muslin down on to the cheese or pop it into a press and allow it to set for a couple of hours (the longer you leave it, up to a day, the firmer it will get); it should then be possible to slice with a sharp knife.
Variation
If you want a more mascarpone-type cheese, replace the milk with double (heavy) cream and maintain the heat for 2 minutes before draining though the muslin cloth.
Crispy spiced curd cheese
This is a real favourite. It works as nibbles or as a crunchy protein-providing topping on a vegetarian curry.
225g/8oz/1½ cups fine semolina or polenta
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp chilli powder
3 tbsp plain (all-purpose) flour
1 egg, beaten with 2 tbsp water
curd cheese made from 1 litre/1¾ pints/4¼ cups milk, pressed for about 24 hours (see page 101), and cut into small cubes
3 tbsp sunflower or groundnut oil
Put the semolina or polenta and the spices in a shallow bowl and mix together. Put the flour and beaten egg on two separate plates, then coat the cubes of cheese in each in turn. Drop the cubes into the spice mixture and stir, making certain all the sides are completely covered. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the coated cheese cubes until they are brown and crunchy on each side, turning as each side is done. Remove with a fish slice and leave to drain on kitchen towels. Serve hot or cold.
Soft cheese
Soft cheese, such as cream cheese, is made in much the same way as hard, but it is drained and briefly pressed or not pressed at all, and ready immediately without any need to mature. It is much simpler and quicker to make than hard cheese because it is eaten fresh, and it is perfect as a dip, a spread, to cook with or even in a fabulous cheesecake (see page 73). Cream cheese is traditionally made with cream, but you can vary the recipe to use whole milk, goat’s milk or even tofu for a vegan fat-free cream cheese.
Cream cheese
This cream cheese is made with whole milk. (Note that if you are using unpasteurized milk, you will need to heat it to 30°C/86°F and then cool to room temperature.)
1.2 litres/2 pints/5 cups whole pasteurized milk
¼ tsp liquid starter culture or a pinch of dry culture
3 drops rennet
sprinkle of fine sea salt
Put the milk in a heavy-based saucepan and heat to room temperature, then mix in the starter culture and the rennet, stirring vigorously for 5 minutes.
Cover and leave at room temperature for 18–20 hours, after which it should look like yoghurt. Line a colander with a muslin cloth and spoon the mixture into it. Tie the corners of the muslin together with the end of a string and hang it up to drain overnight, or for at least 12 hours. (Tying it to a tap over the sink works really well.) Open up the bag and stir the curds with a spoon, then hang for another 12 hours. Once the curds have drained, scrape the cheese out into a bowl and blend by hand until smooth, adding salt or herbs (such as chives) to taste. Chill, then eat immediately.
Hard cheese
There is nothing like a good Cheddar cheese, and the recipe that follows is based on a variant of that, but tweaked here and there to make it in a double boiler in an everyday home kitchen. It can be ready to eat in as little as 2–3 days, or waxed, stored and aged to intensify the flavour for several months.
There can be many steps in the cheese-making process, but basically what you’re doing is controlling the milk through three stages: fermenting, dehydration and solidifying. Fermentation happens when the bacteria is added to the milk and immediately seeks out the lactose sugars and turns them into lactic acid. Next the cheese is dehydrated by adding a rennet that separates the milk into solids (curds) and liquid (whey), before it is drained, shaped, pressed and left to solidify and mature.
Design for a simple homemade cheese press
My Cheddar-ish cheese
This recipe makes approximately 450g/1lb cheese.
5 litres/9 pints/5¼ quarts whole pasteurized milk
300ml/10fl oz/1¼ cups double (heavy) cream
1 tsp liquid starter culture or ⅛ tsp dry culture
½ tsp rennet
2 tsp flaked salt
Mix the milk and cream together in the top of a double boiler and warm to 30°C/86°F, stirring to ensure the mixture does not burn. Take off the heat and add the starter, mixing well, then cover and leave in a warm place for about 1 hour. Meanwhile, boil some water in a kettle and swish out a mug with the boiling water, then pour in just enough water to cover the bottom of the mug and set aside to go cold.
When the hour is up, remove the lid from the double boiler and return it to the hob. Heat over a medium heat and take the milk/ cream mixture all the way up to 32°C/90°F. Mix the rennet with the distilled water in your mug and pour it into the mixture, stirring carefully. Remove from the heat and cover once again, leaving it this time for about 1½ hours, during which time the milk will coagulate.
When the time is up, remove the lid. The milk should feel firm to the touch. Now take a palette knife and plunge it in at one side, drawing it all the way across to the other side. Repeat this process at 1cm/½in intervals until it resembles a neatly lined sheet of paper (albeit a round sheet!), then turn the pan a quarter turn and do the same again so the cuts now cross the original lines at right angles, making neat columns of 1cm/½in squares. Now’s the tricky bit: cutting diagonally into the cheese so you end up with a pan full of 1cm/½in pieces. Return the double boiler to the heat, and, very slowly over the next 45 minutes, raise the temperature to 38°C/100°F, stirring occasionally to prevent the cheese clumping together.
Now line a colander with a muslin cloth, place it in the sink and carefully tip the whole mixture into the muslin, gather it and twist the cloth at the top so it forms a ball and leave it for at least 15 minutes. Using your hands, carefully mix in the flaked salt. Line a cheese mould with a separate piece of muslin and pack in the curds using your hands. Then put it in the cheese press under a 1.8kg/4lb weight for about half an hour.
Take the cheese out of the press and the muslin, and rewrap it upside down, then return it to the cheese press and put it under 3.6kg/8lb of pressure for a further 12 hours. Remove the cheese from the press and the muslin and gently wipe it all over with light salt solution and a small pad of muslin before resting it on a bamboo mat for 3 days, turning twice daily, until the skin feels hard and turns a pale yellow. Your cheese is now ready to eat, or you can dip it in wax for ageing and maturing.
If you found these cheese recipes fun, please go on and do more. There are some wonderful books and great sites online with recipes for all the famous, and not so famous, cheeses just begging to be made.
ICE CREAM
There are essentially two types of ice cream: one cream-based and the other made from custard or a crème anglaise (see recipes on page 108). Of course you can make these ice creams without an ice-cream maker, in the same way you can perform your own dentistry, but it’s not for the faint-hearted because of the amount of work involved, and it’s difficult to get a result that will wow the kids; not impossible, but difficult. Electric ice-cream makers can be picked up relatively cheaply and you’re likely to earn your money back over the course of just one summer by cutting out the weekly tub from your shopping bill. However, in the true spirit of self-sufficiency, there is an alternative …
The hand-cranked ice-cream maker
Remember the poor old dairymaid and her butter churns? Well the hand-cranked ice-cream maker is exactly the same, only colder. Churning ice cream gives a lighter, fluffier, creamier texture because it is constantly being mixed as it cools, and there is no danger of ice crystals forming because everything is completely emulsified. Hand-cranked ice-cream makers are available to buy online and at some of the larger stores, but once you realize the principles of what’s happening, which are really rather clever, it’s simple to make your own.
The temptation is to fill the sink with ice and plonk a metal pan of your ice-cream mixture into it and stir like crazy until it goes hard. But that wouldn’t work, and it wouldn’t work because the ice in the sink is only 0°C/32°F, the temperature at which water freezes, which isn’t cold enough to freeze the ice cream. What we need to do is make the ice in the sink colder, and to do that, we add salt. Adding salt will melt the ice, but crucially bring the temperature down to that at which salt water melts, about –2°C/28.4°F, which is cold enough to freeze ice cream. The other problem with using this method is the fact that once you reach that magic –2°C/28.4°F in the sink, it won’t last long enough to work because the sink itself is being warmed up by the atmosphere. What you need to find is a container made of a material that doesn’t conduct temperature, the best of which is wood.
So, to construct a homemade ice-cream maker, get a wooden box, line it with a black bin-liner (double bagged for safety), half-fill it with ice, measure out about a third of the quantity of ice in rock salt and stir it together. Then pour your ice-cream mixture into a metal pan and lower the pan into the ice, taking care not to let any of the salty ice spill into your ice cream. Take a wooden spoon and spend a pleasant 20–30 minutes folding the mixture continuously from the edge to the middle until it goes firm.
Of course, you could buy an electric ice-cream maker and sip a cool glass of homemade wine while you watch it work. But where’s the fun in that?
Cream-based ice cream
This recipe makes quite a hard ice cream, a kind of old-fashioned break-the-spoon-to-get-it-out ice cream (and therefore benefits from softening by being placed in the fridge for half an hour before serving), though because of the high level of cream it does lend itself very well to hand churning and suits the old favourite flavourings such as strawberry and vanilla, chocolate and banana, even orange.
300ml/10½fl oz/1¼ cups single (light) cream
300ml/10½fl oz/1¼ cups double (heavy) cream
280g/10oz honey or caster (superfine) sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
Pour the creams into a heavy-based saucepan and warm over a low heat until tiny bubbles appear around the sides. Add the sugar and vanilla extract and stir until dissolved, then remove from the heat and allow to cool. Either churn in a hand-cranked or electric ice-cream maker, flavour and freeze or still-freeze (as for the frozen yoghurt on page 97).
Custard-based ice cream
For a smoother, more contemporary ice cream to which you can add crushed honeycomb or cake dough or even a smashed-up chocolate cream egg, try making a custard first. To make custard, you need an egg yolk. Years ago the whole ice cream with egg method would have been made raw, but that was before we discovered the link between raw eggs and salmonella. These days, especially if you’re making ice cream for children, it’s just not worth the risk, so the trick is to make custard and cook it, which kills any salmonella that may be lurking.
570ml/1 pint/2½ cups whole milk
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp granulated sugar
125ml/4fl oz/½ cup double (heavy) cream
Heat the milk in a heavy-based saucepan until just coming to a simmer, then remove from the heat. Put the eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat until smooth, then gradually pour in the hot milk, stirring constantly. When the milk has all been amalgamated, tip the mixture back into the saucepan and return to the heat, stirring all the while until it goes thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. Whip the double cream in a separate bowl until thick and fold into the cooled custard. Churn in a hand-cranked or electric ice-cream maker, then flavour and freeze.
Milkshakes
Opinion differs on a truly great milkshake, from a half and half mix of ice cream and milk, to yoghurt and fruit blended together (known as a smoothie). It basically boils down to the question: do you feel decadent or virtuous?
Everyone should have a little late-night decadence once in a while, and for this all you need is a scoop of ice cream and a slug of milk, and maybe a couple of strawberries or a sprinkling of cocoa powder, whizzed in a blender. Delicious.