BSFIC - Triple ginger and nectarine ice cream

I love ice cream. It's pretty much my favourite dessert. I try not to eat it too often, or have it in the house that often either, so I don't do the Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream challenge much. I do pay attention to it though! Seeing that this month's BSFIC challenge was spices really captured my imagination.

I decided to use the same egg, mascarpone and cream base that I'd used for my whiskey marmalade ice cream at Christmas - it's very rich but not too sweet and has a lovely texture. From that point I decided I wanted to build up layers of ginger flavours.

My original plan was to use some marinated baby figs to add interesting texture and another dimension of flavour, but then I saw some beautiful white nectarines on discount and decided to use them instead.

Nectarines waiting for roasting

Triple ginger and roasted nectarine ice cream

4 white nectarines
1tbs golden syrup
2tsp ground ginger
2 eggs, separated
50g icing sugar
250g mascarpone
3tbs Kings Ginger liqueur
150ml double cream
50g crystallised ginger, chopped
1tbs Kings Ginger extra, per serving

Slice the nectarines and place in a baking dish. Drizzle with golden syrup and dust evenly with the ground ginger. Bake at 160C for about an hour, until soft, slightly caught in places and delicious-looking. Chop into smaller pieces and allow to cool.

Whisk the egg whites in one large bowl to stiff peaks. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks and icing sugar until pale and frothy, then beat in the mascarpone and ginger liqueur. Fold the egg whites into the mascarpone mixture. In the bowl that held the egg whites, beat the cream to soft peaks, then fold gently into the mascarpone mixture. You want it entirely combined, with no streaks of egg white, but without knocking the air out. Fold in the cooled nectarines and crystallised ginger.

Scrape the mixture into a freezer-proof lunch box or similar and freeze for 8 hours or so. Remove from the freezer 5 minutes before serving to allow to ripen a bit (the nectarines still have quite a lot of water in them, so this sets harder than my whiskey marmalade version).

Serve with a drizzle of extra ginger liqueur on each portion.

Seriously lush: smooth, creamy with a warm spicy aftertaste