BSFIC - Green tea ice cream in a sesame snap bowl

When Kavey announced that this month's Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream theme was going to be Japan I was immediately inspired. What could be more Japanese than  a dessert sushi roll? I'd seen a very simple (cheaty) Mark Hix recipe for rice pudding icecream, and I thought that, with a filling of mango puree thickened with gelatine, wrapped in a layer of toasted sesame seeds, would be just the ticket.

Maybe a little sloppy?

I still think the idea has legs. I was just not the cook to execute it correctly. I think what I should have done was make the icecream, spread it on the sesame seeds, then cut slices of mango jelly to have as a firm central core. Because I took shortcuts the result was not pleasing.

Oh that's not right!

So I went back to the drawing board. I decided that the less-original but thoroughly identifiably Japanese green tea ice cream was the way forward. I was intrigued by the one-step, no-churn coffee ice cream that was on Nigellissima this week and thought that it would be pretty easy to adapt.

I used a half quantity of cream and condensed milk (squeezy condensed milk is my new favourite thing - so much easier to manage than the cans), added 1tbs vanilla extract and then sachets of instant iced green tea until I felt the flavour was strong enough. This was 4 sachets. Then I whisked it to soft peaks, put it in the freezer and left it alone.

Unpromising grey green greasy muck

A scoop of strangely-coloured ice cream in a bowl wasn't really going to cut it, presentation-wise. I also couldn't quite let go of the sesame from my first idea. I found this recipe for ginger sesame snaps, which I thought would make a nice bowl to serve the ice cream.  I didn't need 48, and I only had enough sesame seeds to make a quarter quantity, so that was what I did.

Making sesame snap baskets is not straightforward

I may not have needed 48, but I definitely needed 12 to get them right. To get them cooked properly and then allowed to cool for long enough to make them liftable but still malleable was quite the challenge. Fortunately the failures were delicious with a really strong fresh lemon and ginger flavour. And eventually I got enough right for ice cream serving purposes.

I absolutely recommend the cream and condensed milk mixture for people who don't have an ice cream maker. It has the most perfect scoopable-from-the-fridge texture and smooth, velvety mouthfeel. It is, of course, extremely sweet, so probably best used for coffee, green tea or maybe tart fruit flavours (rhubarb I think would be delicious but this is absolutely not the right base for chocolate ice cream).

The combination of the green tea ice cream with its slightly bitter aftertaste and the fresh ginger and lemon sesame snap was really delicious. And it looked pretty, which is important.

End result well worth the tribulations