Margarita cheesecake ice cream

You may have heard that the UK is in the grip of a heatwave. It's not quite as hot as the infamous summer of 1976 (mention the weather in front of any British person over the age of 45 and they start to tell you about the summer of '76) but weeks of high 20s temperatures and very little rain have meant that there's barbecuing and grilling and salads and not a lot of other cooking going on.

But I did make this rather good dessert over the weekend.

It relies on the booze to stop it from freezing hard, so if you don't like to consume alcohol this really isn't for you.

Margarita Cheesecake Ice Cream (it's rich, makes lots)

1 x 397g can of full-fat condensed milk
300g cream cheese
2 limes
3 tbs tequila
3 tbs Cointreau or triple sec
300ml double cream
Shortbread biscuits, to serve

In a large bowl, using an electric whisk, beat together the condensed milk, cream cheese, grated zest and juice of the limes and the alcohol until smooth. Add the cream and whisk until soft peaks form. Scrape into a freezer-proof container and freeze overnight. Serve with a shortbread biscuit on the side. I'd have crumbled them up and mixed them through, but Paul really hates those sorts of bits in his ice cream.

Häagen-Dazs Chocolate Salted Caramel

Saying "yes" to the offer of sampling the chocolate salted caramel ice cream from Häagen-Dazs was pretty obvious. I think it's been clear over the years that I really like Häagen-Dazs as a brand and I really like ice cream under most circumstances.

I said "yes" and a couple of vouchers arrived in the post a day or so later. Getting to the shops took a bit longer. It meant I totally missed National Chocolate Week, which was the whole point of them offering me the product to try. But as I know that for many people every week is chocolate week I don't feel too bad about that time slip.

So I knew I really liked their regular salted caramel ice cream and I thought I'd better get a tub of that as well as the chocolate to do a side by side comparison. Definitely for research purposes. And not at all just for me because it is delicious. I also picked up a tub of vanilla for Paul. His choice. I'm generous like that.

"Chocolate ice cream with a decadent salted caramel swirl and salted caramel brittle". The chocolate wasn't too sweet, which I really liked. The salted caramel had enough salt to stand up against the chocolate - I had wondered about that, because chocolate can be such a brute - although I thought the chunky bits of caramel were more chewy than brittle. It's very good, and I am sure lovers of grown up chocolate flavours will absolutely fall for it, but it's not quite enough to make chocolate my first choice of ice cream flavour. Not in a world with salted caramel, and dulce de leche, and macadamia nut brittle, and pralines and cream.

No-churn peanut caramel cheesecake ice cream

So, this is what I did with the leftover unsatisfactory honey peanut brittle I made the other week. If you don't happen to have unsatisfactory honey peanut brittle in the house, don't go out of your way to make it - use some bought honey roasted peanuts or peanut brittle or even a chopped up Daim bar or something. But the caramel cheesecake ice cream is good just plain too. If I wasn't going to add the peanut brittle, I'd add a little pinch of sea salt flakes to the mixture, for a nice balance.

No-churn peanut caramel cheesecake ice cream (serves 6-8)

280g soft cream cheese (or 300g or 250g - the standard tub in your neck of the woods)
300ml double cream
400g milk caramel (the type you make by boiling a can of condensed milk, but I used a ready made one)
1tbs vanilla
3tbs dark rum (or brandy/whisky/bourbon)
2 good handfuls roughly chopped peanut brittle

Whisk the cream cheese, double cream, caramel, vanilla and rum to soft peaks. Fold in the peanut brittle. Freeze.

This one freezes harder than my usual no-churn ice creams, so take it out of the freezer 5-10 minutes before scooping.

No-churn lemon ripple ice cream

I've mentioned that I hate food waste, haven't I? It feels so wrong to throw away ingredients because I've not made it around to cooking the dish I bought them for, or even worse, because I've misjudged use-by dates. This ice cream happened because a carton of cream was on its use-by date and I didn't have any other plans to use it for the next couple of days (I find that sealed cartons of cream are usually fine for at least a day or two afterwards, but I didn't want to push it too far). It also finished up a squeezy bottle of condensed milk that had been in the fridge for a while and the jar of lemon curd left from my raspberry and lemon dacquoise, so definitely a worthwhile, simple and useful little recipe. And delicious. Oh so delicious.

It uses the whipped cream and condensed milk base which makes a no-churn ice cream scoopable straight from the freezer, but I added a little vodka just to help it along. If you have a bottle of limoncello that you bought on holidays and have never got around to using, you could add that instead.

No-churn lemon ripple ice cream (serves about 4)

170g condensed milk
170ml double cream
1 lemon, juice and grated zest
2tbs vodka
good quality lemon curd

Put the condensed milk, lemon zest, juice and vodka in a large glass bowl and give it a bit of a stir to combine. Then add the cream and whip until it forms defined peaks.

Fold in the lemon curd (I had about 3 heaped tablespoons left from the dacquoise and dunking a spoon in the jar every time I went into the kitchen) very roughly, so it's rippled through the cream. Scrape into a plastic box, cover and freeze.

Now, Kavey's Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream event this month has a water ice theme - sorbets and granitas. So this doesn't qualify AT ALL. But it tastes so good that I am going to send it along to her anyway. And lemon is refreshing, so it's almost like a sorbet, right? Creamy, luscious sorbet.

Merry Christmas - sgroppino al ciliegia

My last Christmassy cocktail is a festive take on the Italian sgroppino - prosecco with lemon sorbet. It uses some of the boozy cherries I preserved in the summer, but at this time of year boozy fruit seems quite easily available. And by tomorrow it should be heavily discounted.

Sgroppino al Ciliegia (with apologies to the Italians if I've got the gender of the words confused)

For each glass:

1 scoop Black Vanilla black cherry sorbetto
2-3 boozy cherries
Dry sparkling wine

Place the sorbetto and boozy cherries in a glass and carefully top up with the sparkling wine.

I hope all my readers have a very merry Christmas, in whatever form they celebrate it.

Elizabeth David's Glace à l'abricot - BSFIC random recipes

Last month I won the most brilliant prize - a lifetime premium membership to Eat Your Books, which is a fantastic cookbook index site. Once you've tagged all the cookbooks (and some blogs and magazines) you own on your "shelf", you can use it to search for recipes without flicking through pages, bookmark things you want to make and make notes on the success (or otherwise) and variations you made to the recipe. I've been finding it extremely useful - especially in the recent cherry glut. I would never have thought to look in Tamasin Day-Lewis's books for a Bakewell recipe, but it was her frangipane filling I ended up using. It's brilliant. I love getting more use out of the cookbooks I have acquired over the years.

As I won this amazing prize through Kavey Eats, it seemed fitting that I should try to use it for this month's Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream challenge. Even more fittingly, this month Kavey has teamed up with Dom from Belleau Kitchen to do a combined BSFIC/Random Recipe challenge.

In order to generate my random ice cream recipe, I did a search in my indexed recipes for ice cream. Which produced 402 results. Then I went to a random number generator which picked #312. This identified a flaw in my system. My search had identified every recipe on my shelf featuring the words "Ice" and "cream". Recipe 312 was Elizabeth David's iced ham mousse... which didn't really fit the bill, or sound in any way appealing. So 311 was her Apricot Ice, Glace à l'abricot, from French Provincial Cooking.

This is a classic custard-based ice cream, with a bit of whipped cream folded through just before freezing. It's not churned, it's just given a couple of stirs while freezing, which suits me. Mrs David's recipes are not for those who like explicit instructions. "Make a custard with 1/2 pint of thin cream or, for the sake of economy, milk". So I heated the cream with a split vanilla pod, poured it onto the egg yolks, which I'd beaten with caster sugar and then returned it to the pan.

Egg yolks beaten with caster sugar

It worked well, although I would have preferred a more pronounced apricot flavour - maybe the addition of half a dozen dried apricot halves to the puree, or perhaps a ripple of apricot jam. I also think that freezers are probably more efficient now than they were in 1960 - my ice cream froze very hard and needed a good 15 minutes to be scoopable, and even then it wasn't a tidy scoop. I also suspect that I was supposed to drain the apricots before pureeing them, instead of including the poaching syrup which obviously added a lot of extra liquid. But as I hardly ever make proper custard-based ice cream, I was still proud of this one.

Häagen-Dazs - real or nothing

One of the things that dismays Paul about me is my love for ice cream. He doesn't see the point and doesn't get why I love it so. He does have a point, of course: it increasingly looks like sugar is seriously damaging to your health. So, despite the beautiful weather, I have been turning down very kind offers of ice cream samples and I didn't take part in last month's BSFIC challenge.

Eventually and inevitably, I got an offer too good to refuse. The chance to attend a lunch, cooked by a Masterchef winner, to launch the Häagen-Dazs summer campaign. As I don't actually watch Masterchef, I had no idea who Natalie Coleman was, but it sounded impressive. Plus the event was being co-hosted by Great British Chefs and I bloody love that site.

When I arrived, a little late and a little discombobulated, I was shown to a roof terrace and plied with booze. A good start. They were serving cocktails designed to fit in with the ice cream flavours, so I started with a Rossini, which went down very easily and followed it up with a salted caramel martini. Then we were invited down to watch Natalie demonstrate how to make a classic vanilla custard-based ice cream. The emphasis for this Häagen-Dazs campaign is real ice cream, showcasing the natural ingredients they use, hence showing us how to make it from scratch.

 Nothing ground-breaking, although she did share a useful tip about gently rolling vanilla pods on a board to help release the seeds.

"nestergen leaf" = nasturtium - and I don't know who got the crab, but it sounded good!

More drinks, and then it was lunch time. To match the real ice cream were dishes featuring real eggs, milk, cream and butter. So delicious but good lord it was all very rich. To the point where it didn't really leave me in a great frame of mind or palate for tasting ice cream.

We started with duck egg yolks, confited in olive oil in the oven (no sous vide gadgetry!), served with green and white asparagus, hollandaise, nasturtium leaves and a generous shower of white truffle shavings.

Then more richness, in the form of meltingly tender, crackling-topped slow-cooked pork belly on a pillow of smooth, buttery cauliflower puree. A fat, sweet scallop was separated from the pork by a very welcome tangle of green apple and sharply dressed pea shoots. It was a bit too salty for my taste, and, although it was beautifully cooked and presented, I think I would have enjoyed it more had it not come just after confit duck egg and hollandaise. I envied Kerstin Rodgers/Ms Marmite Lover her vegetarian option - the pumpkin ravioli looked superb.

The vegetarian option

Natalie's ice cream was simply presented, with bowls and jugs of accompaniments for self-service. I garnished mine with a handful of roasted macadamia nuts and a pool of salted caramel sauce.

Then the serious fun began. Nadège Le Pennec, from the Häagen-Dazs R&D team, handed around a bowl of sugar and told us to put a bit in our mouths, while blocking our noses. I noted the teensiest bit of eye-rolling around the circle as we all did as we were told, and all thought "Sugar. Big deal". Then Nadège's magic trick as we unblocked our noses and discovered that the sugar was heavily scented with cinnamon. Completely undetectable just on the tastebuds, but revealed as soon as we let go of our noses.

Next came a blind tasting of four different vanilla ice creams. Two were pretty dreadful, with no aroma, an icy, milky texture and a taste that vaguely skirted around vanilla without actually hitting it. The other two were dense and creamy, a bit eggy, with enough aroma to survive freezing and a true vanilla flavour. We were split fairly equally between those two, when we were asked to guess which one was the Häagen-Dazs. Those of us who were wrong (...me) couldn't feel too bad about that though, because the one we picked... was Natalie's home-made. Pretty compelling, I thought.

The event drew to a close with opportunities to taste all the flavours, which I was in no state to appreciate, and we were sent home with little wicker hampers of the ingredients for real ice cream and Natalie's recipe.

I found it all interesting, because I didn't know anything about Häagen-Dazs prior to this. I remember when they launched in Australia in the late 1990s, and being vaguely aware of a "But they aren't even Danish, how can you trust them?" controversy. Which I don't entirely understand now, because they never claimed to be Danish - they are quite proud of their Brooklyn roots. So what with one thing and another, I'd never paid any attention at all to the brand. Now, well, it may have been lots of alcohol before lunch and the aroma of freshly grated truffle, but I totally drank the Kool-aid.

Which meant that when I saw this quote from Matt O'Connor of the Licktators in our local magazine, I bristled: 

Optima magazine No. 550 August 2nd 2014

"Milk protein powder, coconut oil, and a lot of air is what you are buying with Häagen-Dazs and the like. I'm amazed they can get away with it. Still, that's the Food Standards Agency for you," he says grimly.

So, as a little comparison, here is a screenshot of the Häagen-Dazs ingredients list for their vanilla ice cream, as sold on Ocado.

Fresh cream, condensed skimmed milk, sugar, egg yolk and natural vanilla.

And here is a screenshot of the Licktator's vanilla ice cream:

Wow. He really showed the big boys what real ice cream was all about, hey?...

So, to get rid of the taste of sour grapes, here is a recipe for one of the cocktails I particularly enjoyed. To be drunk with real ice cream, or by itself.

Salted Caramel Martini

35ml Butterscotch Schnapps
35ml Vanilla Vodka
15m Dry White Vermouth

Shake over ice and serve in a cocktail glass rimmed with salt

Edited to add: Daniel Young, of Young and Foodish, asked the Licktators on Twitter to comment on this comparison, and they stated that they were misquoted by Optima, that they were commenting about "Fake 99" ice cream in general.

Peach melba bombe: BSFIC

I got a bit excited when Kavey announced that this month's Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream challenge was fruit-based. Paul maintains that I will eat anything as long as it is ice cream, and I do love caramelly/toffee/butterscotchy flavours, but I have a distinct preference for fruity flavours in ice cream and gelato. And of course, all the summer fruits are coming into the shops. At the moment they are mostly from Spain and warmer climes, but there is the promise of the British soft fruit season to come.

I'd also been looking for an excuse to try out Mimi's cream cheese ice cream base, or a version thereof, which I thought would go very well with fruit. Because of the high water content of the fruit, the texture was a bit more crystalline than the ideal, which I had anticipated but I couldn't be bothered trying to find peach schnapps just to use a couple of tablespoons full. Or to stir the ice cream as it froze to break up the crystals. This is an involved enough process for the lazy ice cream maker without adding to it!

For this ice cream bombe, you need to start a day ahead. You'll also need 2 freezer-proof bowls or containers, one that fits inside the other (I used a metal pudding basin with a small plastic bowl that fits inside it).

Peach melba bombe (serves loads - maybe 10?)

340g raspberries
1T caster sugar
4T chambord
4 eggyolks
75g caster sugar
300g cream cheese
170ml double cream
1T vanilla
2 peaches (freestone to make life easier, preferably yellow, which will give a prettier colour than the white ones I used), peeled, sliced and pureed.

Put the raspberries, caster sugar and chambord in a plastic tub, cover and allow to macerate overnight, stirring from time to time (or turning it over if you are confident of the box's seal).

Whisk the egg yolks and caster sugar over a saucepan of simmering water for 5-10 minutes, until the sugar has dissolved and they have more than doubled in volume to a fluffy mousse. 

In another bowl, whisk the cream cheese, cream and vanilla together until smooth and light, then fold through the egg mousse. Divide the mixture in half-ish (doesn't need to be too accurate). Fold the peach puree through one half of the cream cheese mixture.

Line your larger bowl or pudding basin with cling film. Scrape the peach-flavoured mixture into it. Push your other bowl down into it (might need to weight it with a ramekin or something so it doesn't float). Cover it with cling film (or the pudding basin's lid) and freeze overnight. Also cover the plain vanilla mixture and refrigerate overnight.

The following day, remove the inner bowl (you might need to fill it with hot water briefly to get it to release). Pack the macerated raspberries into the cavity, then cover over with the chilled plain mixture. Cover and freeze for several hours until firm before turning out and slicing.

The juices from the raspberries drain through and form a cap on top of the bombe.

Mulled wine granita and frozen caffè latte

 

This month's Blogger's Scream for Ice Cream challenge (Kavey's monthly blogging event which fuels my ice cream addiction) is frozen treats inspired by hot drinks.

I pondered the theme for a while. Kavey's post said "think tea, coffee, hot chocolate, bovril, maté, hot ribena, lemsip" and I did for a moment or two consider a bullshot-inspired ice cream. But I'm not Heston and I don't think I quite have the cooking chops to carry that one off. I know my limitations. Just because it is a challenge doesn't mean it has to be challenging...

I mulled the theme over for a while longer before realising that "mulled" was indeed the way to go. A light, fresh, crystalline granita with all the flavours of one of my favourite winter beverages. It was going to be perfect, I thought.

Mulled Wine Granita (serves 4)

200ml fresh cloudy apple juice
2tbs sugar
1 strip orange zest
1 stick cinnamon
4 cloves
1 star anise
2 cardamom pods, bruised
200ml dry red wine

Combine the apple juice, sugar, zest and spices in a small saucepan, and bring gently to the boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Simmer for a couple of minutes, then remove from the heat and allow to infuse for 15 minutes. Strain into a plastic box and add the wine. Cover and freeze, giving a couple of stirs with a fork every now and again to ensure that the crystals aren't too big.

Flake with a fork into glasses to serve.

Now, I thought this was brilliant. Not too sweet, definitely spicy with a distinct wine flavour and a good way to end a meal. Paul, on the other hand, said it tasted like cough syrup. So I decided to try something else, for people for whom that description is off-putting.

I haven't had his assessment of my frozen caffè lattes, but I think it is a good one - strictly for coffee lovers!

Frozen caffè latte (makes 4) 

2 eggs, separated
100g caster sugar
1tbs instant coffee (I always use decaf for desserts, otherwise I can't sleep!)
1tsp Camp coffee
2tbs kirsch (or rum, brandy, kahlua, Baileys, whisky etc)
170ml single cream

Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and instant coffee with an electric mixer until the sugar and coffee has dissolved and the mixture has doubled in volume. Fold in the Camp coffee, booze and cream. Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, and fold thoroughly into the coffee mixture, trying not to knock too much air out of it.

Divide between 4 glasses, cover with cling film and freeze. The egg whites should make the mixture separate into two layers. Remove from the freezer a couple of minutes before serving.

It's hard to have a Gaytime on your own: BSFIC

One of the things about living in a foreign country is gaining perspective on your own culture and upbringing. Cricket commentators casually referring to "Pakis" is rightly considered unacceptable in the UK. Not everyone stores jam in the fridge. And it had never really crossed my mind that having an ice cream called a Gaytime was pretty funny.

Now I just admire the fact that Streets haven't renamed them.

Anyway, after a cold weather hiatus Kavey has resurrected her Bloggers scream for ice cream challenge, and this one is a nostalgic look back at ice cream van treats.

I don't have any particularly strong childhood memories of ice cream vans. I think we were probably a bit too rural for them to be worthwhile, so our source of that sort of ice cream was Robyn's dad's milk bar. My all-time favourite was the Choc-Toff Paddlepop, which I seem to remember cost 20c. However, since I am still bitter that they were discontinued I decided to go for my second favourite, the Golden Gaytime.

The actual mechanics of making a vanilla ice cream core with toffee ice cream surrounding it, coating it in chocolate and biscuit crumbs to make an exact replica were a bit beyond me, so I just concentrated on getting a flavour that a Gaytime lover (no more giggles from the back row, please) would find familiar.

I took 250ml of premium vanilla custard and folded a can of caramel through it. Then I folded in a handful of crushed chocolate-dipped honeycomb biscuits, put it in a plastic tub and froze it. I took it out and gave it a stir after about an hour, but because of the caramel it doesn't freeze really hard.

I think if I make it again I might also make some plain vanilla ice cream and ripple the two together. The caramel flavour and the chocolate and biscuit crunch was absolutely spot on for my memory, but it's so intensely sweet that it really does need that bit of vanilla to mellow it. This makes about 750ml, so you can have a Gaytime on your own if you spread it out over a few days or a single emotional crisis.

Ben & Jerry's Greek Style Frozen Yoghurt

I had such a good time at the launch of the Ben & Jerry's Core flavours last year that I jumped at the chance to go to another one of their events. This one was the launch of three flavours of frozen yoghurt made with Greek-style yoghurt.

This time I confess I was a little apprehensive. It was being held in a Greek restaurant in Covent Garden which gets quite negative reviews, and while I love Greek food (garlic, olive oil and lemon juice, what's not to love?) and love frozen yoghurt I did fear that crappy food would mar the experience.

However, I engineered things in my favour by arranging to meet a friend for a drink beforehand, thus ensuring that whatever else happened it wasn't a waste of tube fare. It was pretty tempting to stay drinking rosé in a quiet bar, but I did tear myself away at the appropriate time.

My heart sank as the waitress who greeted me in the restaurant stared blankly at me. Fortunately, a better-informed member of staff overheard and led me downstairs where, he said, "everyone" was waiting for me. Everyone turned out to be a small number of bloggers (several more trickled in after me) and several bottles of prosecco. The prosecco was very pleased to see me.

Generally I think the fact that we were in a windowless room that I suspect is usually used to store extra chairs put a bit of a damper on things. Certainly the atmosphere was a bit subdued.

But then the food started to come out and a bit of perkiness was restored. The food was very, very good! Some of the best tiropitakia I've had (lovely chilli kick), delicious fried halloumi, succulent meatball/kefte sort of patties and lots of good-looking (but unwieldy, so I didn't try it) aubergine.

I muscled my way into a very pleasant conversation with Dom from Cocoa Runners and Judith from Mostly About Chocolate and started to enjoy myself.

The buzz of nervous PRs gave the first indication that something had gone slightly wrong with the actual frozen yoghurt tasting. When the bowls came out it was clear what the problem was - the fro-yo wasn't fro, it was really just yo. The freezer wasn't working.

Still, it gave me enough of an idea of the flavours that I had a look online when I got home and discovered that Ocado had the Greek-style yoghurts half price. I popped two of the flavours in my shopping and prepared to do some independent "research".

Greek Strawberry Shortcake (Greek-style yoghurt, strawberries & shortcake chunks): strawberry ice cream is generally my favourite, and the Ben & Jerry strawberry cheesecake ice cream is a favourite among strawberries so I was very interested to see how this compared. This has a good, fruity flavour and subtle yoghurty tang. Unfortunately the tub I bought had too high a proportion of fairly bland shortcake pieces, although I suspect that varies a bit from tub to tub. It's a bit lower in calories than the strawberry cheesecake (190/100g instead of 250/100g) and has half the fat, so it is a slightly healthier option if you are keeping an eye on those things. I'm not sure that it is enough of a healthier option to displace the strawberry cheesecake in my affections though.

Greek Vanilla Honey Caramel (Greek-style yoghurt, vanilla & a honey caramel swirl): this looked to me like a direct competitor to the Yeo Valley organic Greek-style honey frozen yoghurt, which I really like, but I think the caramel swirl gives this one the edge (the Yeo Valley one is slightly lower in calories and fat). It has a lovely creamy texture and a bit of a tang.

Overall, I think the emphasis on these is "ice cream", not "frozen yoghurt". They don't taste particularly worthy and they avoid some of the pitfalls of some of the other supermarket brands I've tried (rock-hard, weird elastic texture, floury aftertaste). In a perfect world they'd have the really clean, pronounced tang of the softserve fro-yo from Snog or the one from Itsu, but if you don't have my taste for really tangy yoghurt this will definitely appeal.

Banana split - banana, Ben & Jerry's Greek Style frozen yoghurt and chilli-glazed nuts - these are really quite small scoops.

Coconut pandanus no-churn ice cream

I like having some ice cream in the freezer. I don't need lots of different flavours; just one, for when the urge strikes.

This one is based on Nigella's one-step, no-churn coffee ice cream, which is the perfect recipe to produce a fairly small quantity of ice cream without much in the way of fancy equipment. The coconut cream gives it a harder texture, as it sets into flakes that give it a sort of stracciatella mouthfeel. If I'd had some rum I would have added it, but I didn't, so there you are. The pandanus extract is what gives it the lurid green colour, but also adds a rich vanilla-y, coconutty flavour, complementing the coconut cream and coconut chips. I just ate it as-is, but it would be brilliant with some warm chocolate sauce, or with grilled pineapple chunks.

Coconut pandanus no-churn ice cream

300ml double cream
175g condensed milk
1 tsp pandanus essence
100g coconut cream (I've found buying coconut milk & cream in the UK bothersome. Nearly all of the supermarket brands are only about 60% coconut & the rest is stabilisers, whereas in Australia it's mainly the reduced-fat, or the really cheap ones that have that sort of dreck in them. For this you want a 100% coconut cream product)
25g sweetened coconut chips

Whisk the cream, condensed milk and pandanus essence to soft, billowy peaks. Fold in the coconut cream and coconut chips , scrape into a plastic box and freeze. Take out of the freezer a couple of minutes before serving to ripen.

No idea why the colour intensified like that on freezing.

Land down under: Brisbane Part the Third

A few last little bits and pieces to wrap up my stay in Brisbane!

Along South Bank are community tea, herb and salad gardens. Such a charming idea! The lemon verbena and spearmint in this bed were particularly aromatic

Bettina made these delicious mandarin and ginger braised beef cheeks - she told me about this recipe ages ago but I have never got around to trying it. I'm glad I have now! I'll definitely make it when the casserole weather comes back.

Maggie Beer's burnt fig, honeycomb and caramel ice cream. Divine. Worth a visit to Australia really! But in case that isn't achievable, there are a few "inspired by" recipes on the internet that look worth a shot. I am going to try this one.

A friend of mine moved up to Noosa a couple of years ago and opened a cafe/wine bar, so we went up for lunch. And I would say this regardless of my relationship with Gareth - Shades makes a damn fine BLT and excellent chips.

After lunch we had a bit of a drive around Noosa. And saw a koala. I don't think I have ever seen a wild koala before so it was a real treat!

Land down under: The Blue Mountains

This post has been a couple of weeks in the making - and is not as full as it could be because I forgot my camera battery charger so had a while where I couldn't take pictures. So you don't get to see the spatzle I helped my aunt make, or the rather good pumpkin and walnut lasagne we made (I tell you what though, spelt flour is a pig to make pasta with, I will not do that again), or the lovely Nigel Slater apple cake. You are also spared the genuinely dreadful loaf of wholemeal bread and appalling mushroom omelette I constructed.

You do get to see a couple of other things though.

I've been staying on the edge of the Blue Mountains for the last couple of weeks. This is pretty close to the NSW wine regions, and in the five years since I was last here, the area has really started to champion these local wines. I think it really helps that the wines have improved out of sight in that time...

This sparkling wine was particularly delicious - very crisp and appley.

Bubbles make things good.

So I drank some very nice local wines.

I only had one meal out, with my friend Megan, who you may remember from posts such as this one and this one. She's living back in Sydney now (Sydney's gain, London's distinct loss) but did a day trip to Leura in order to play with me. We had lunch at a place called Zest, where the food was good and the service was bad.

Megan had lamb tagine with couscous. Deliciously tender and fragrant but a bit too sweet in parts

I had lamb shishliks - 2 weeks of vegetarian food was about enough for me. Just what I needed.

I had a perfect baked cheesecake, topped with honey flavoured with orange flower water

Megan had a very good carrot cake

One reason for the timing of this trip was in order to coincide with my aunt's 50th birthday. For her birthday lunch she wanted fondue, so I made my very nice wild mushroom version.

For dessert I made an apple strudel, mostly following Nigel Slater's recipe in Ripe. I did make a few variations though. I left out the apricot jam and almonds, used Granny Smiths instead of sweet apples and added 1tbs calvados to the filling. And instead of fresh white breadcrumbs fried in butter, I used the aforementioned abysmal loaf of wholemeal bread, combined with some ground mixed nuts.

Layers of phyllo pastry, butter and wholemeal bread crumbs mixed with ground nuts

Thinly sliced granny smith apples, light muscovado sugar and sultanas, with lemon zest and juice, cinnamon and a touch of calvados

I also made a pretty damn good zabaglione ice cream to go with it. We sampled the ice cream the night before (with some pears baked in more of the marsala) and I think it is pretty much the perfect winter ice cream.

Zabaglione ice cream
2 eggs, separated
60g raw sugar
4 tbs marsala wine
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
300ml cream

Combine the egg yolks, sugar, marsala, vanilla and cinnamon in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Beat until it comes up to lukewarm and the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and whisk until cool, pale and frothy.

In another bowl whisk the egg whites to firm peaks.

In yet another bowl whisk the cream to soft peaks.

Fold the three bowlsful together until properly combined, but trying not to knock the air out of it. Freeze in a plastic box over night. Serve on its own (I think a caramel sauce would be wonderful with it), as an affogatto, or with a hot fruit dessert.