Even though my flat has three freezers in it, I am rapidly running out of freezer space. The novelty of my ice cream churner has not yet worn off.
I have a big post-it at work where I write flavour combinations that come into my head. This week I tried my hand at making the gingernut ice cream I had always promised to make my friend Sophie (who loves gingernuts).
I like this more than my lemon curd ice cream from a few days ago. Yes I made a litre just a few days ago and here I am making more. To be fair, my flatmates are terrible at eating ice cream. I think this is their only flaw. So if you come round to my flat feel free to ask for an ice cream because I will soon have a shops worth of variety to pick from.
If ginger isn't your thang then maybe skip out the crystallised ginger. Ginger is my thang so I loaded it up - I actually added more than what I have put in the recipe. I thought blasting your heads off just because ginger is my favsies might not be the best. I added 70g of the stuff FYI in case you too were that way inclined.
You want to bring all your inclusions down to a chilled temp before adding them into your soft serve. This way you won't undo all that hard freezing work your machine has done.
Honey, Mascarpone and Gingernut Ice Cream
Makes 1 Litre
For the base
2 cups cream (35% fat)
2 cups 1.5% fat milk
3/4 cup sugar
5 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
For the inclusions
100g mascarpone
120g gingernuts, chopped, sealed in a plastic bag and frozen (use gf gingernuts to make this gf)
50g crystallised ginger, chopped (don't worry about chilling this)
Ice Cream Base
Place the ice cream bowl of your churner in the freezer overnight.
To make the ice cream base (which is essentially a custard), warm your milk, cream and honey in a medium sized saucepan and in a separate bowl beat together the egg yolks, sugar and ground ginger. I do this second part in my Kitchenaid with the whisk attachment to make life easier.
Once the Milk and cream are just below a simmer remove the pan from the heat and with the beater still going on start to pour in the milk slowly into the sugar and egg one cup at time. Do this very gradually so that the eggs don't scramble. Continue to beat and pour until all the milk/cream has been added. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the egg and sugar is mixed in.
Transfer this mix back to the saucepan and continue to heat on a very low heat until the custard thickens slightly. It should coat the back of a spoon but it won't get thick like store bought custard. If you have a thermometer it should be about 75 to 80 degrees Celsius. DO NOT BOIL. You will scramble the eggs and this cannot be undone, you will need to start again.
Once the custard is cooked, transfer to a plastic container, cover lightly and once at room temperature place in the fridge overnight.
To Churn
Assemble your ice cream machine. Take the container you plan to put your ice cream in in the freezer to cool. Pour in the custard base and turn on, churning for around 15 minutes so that a solid soft serve consistency is achieved. Pour in your chopped gingernuts and crystallised ginger and let it churn for another few minutes. Just before you turn your machine off, drop in small spoonfuls of mascarpone and let the machine roughly mix it in. You wan't to be able to taste pockets of it. Transfer your thick soft serve to your chilled container and freeze overnight.
Serve the net day!
Enjoy x
(Also I shot this in the 7 minute break in torrential rain the other day but it was still sweltering hot so the ice cream melted hella fast - classic Kiwi summer)
