The mercury has hit the high thirties (Celsius of course, not Fahrenheit) in the Cape quite a few times these last two weeks. Now I know ‘glowing’ is the dainty way of referring to what happens to a woman who’s hot – and I mean hot in the overheating sense, not the boy-I-could-date-her sense. But trust me, ‘glowing’ is entirely the wrong word for what’s been going down.
Unlike so many of my more fortunate compatriots, there is no pool at Chez Melkkos & Merlot. This means I have to resort to desperate measures, like running semi naked through a sprinkler in my back yard. Fortunately, possibly more so for my neighbours than for me, the walls are quite high.
I also made ice cream. Because I happened to have a fair bit of cream left over from a dairy shoot I worked on and it was about to go off. The inspiration for this recipe is my friend Philippa’s mom’s lemon ice cream. The principle is basic – it’s equal quantities of milk to cream and lemon and sugar to taste. So I followed the basics but played with it a bit as I also had a punnet of blueberries left over from the shoot that was starting to look on the edge of suspect. I boiled them up with a bit of sugar to make a luscious thick blueberry sauce, cooled it down and stirred it into the ice cream. There you have it, lemon and blueberry ripple ice cream.
All you need is…
1.5L cold cream (best value option is Pick n Pay’s 1L bottle of cream)
500ml cold milk
2¾ cups castor sugar
zest and juice of 4-5 lemons (taste and see how tangy you like it)
1 cup fresh blueberries (frozen is also fine)
Combine the cream, milk and 2½ cups of the sugar in a large mixing bowl. Whisk it with a handheld blender until it starts to thicken nicely. Stir in the lemon zest and juice and mix through. (I did the lemon route because I happened to have lemons. But I think limes will work even better with the blueberries.)
If you have an ice cream machine, use it to get your ice cream to soft serve consistency. If you don’t, place the ice cream in the freezer and whisk it thoroughly with your hand blender every hour until it reaches soft serve consistency. (This recipe makes a lot, so I find the freezing process is speeded up if I divide the mixture equally between three bowls.)
Make your blueberry sauce in the meantime. Simply boil together the blueberries and the remaining quarter cup of sugar covered over low heat until the berries start breaking down and you have a lovely thick sauce. Refrigerate to cool.
Once your ice cream has reached soft serve consistency, scoop it into its serving dish. Spoon over the berry sauce and use a palette knife to gently draw the sauce through the ice cream and create a ripple effect. Freeze until firm.
In the mood for something traditional? Try my old-fashioned Ideal Milk ice cream. Just like grandma made it.
makes
3,5L
prep
30 min
freeze
6 hrs
A feast for the eyes, Lizet!
Thanks Kathleen! :)