Caramel ice-cream

Oooo - this was a stunner.
Caramel ice-cream from River Cafe recipe. I tasted the magical consistency of this at River Cafe itself on 4th Feb. It was amazingly soft yet icy enough. Just beautiful. So I went to them for the proportions. However - my homemade version was too fatty. I tuned down the smokiness of the caramel, I felt it had cooked too far in the one we had at the restaurant, and that part was brilliant. But I'd prefer a less fatty ice-cream, one that doesn't leave a residue on your spoon! The flavour and iciness of the ice-cream was lovely tho', and kept us feasting for several days :)
From reading Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck book, he has investigated the fat, sugar, ice proportions rigorously. I'll take a small leaf out of his very large book on that. Was also reading Roux brother's Patisserie, and they use much much less cream in their ice-creams. This one is a trial and error candidate. The taste and texture are potentially worth it.

Baked apples, blueberry frozen yoghurt, lavender shortbread

Now this is the start of things to come. I have the ice-cream maker, so can make gelati, and I have Gordon Ramsey's Desserts book, so I can work through the repertoire of great classic desserts.
He has a recipe for Cumin shortbread, but I wanted to try it with lavender - just the smallest amount so it was fragrant but not soapy - lavender is really strong.

The shortbread was simply lovely. So light. I made 20 biscuits, and we just ate the lot. They were irresistable. I will try some with orange.

The apples were not as successful as I'd hoped. I chose braeburns and they were still quite firm after the cooking time. The one great thing was the peppercorns with the apple. The taste is phenomenal. Its subtle, but magically adds depth and warmth to the apple.
The recipe calls for brushing the apples with soft (but not melted butter) then rolling the apples in demerara sugar. I think I needed to embed the sugar better onto the apple, or use less butter, so that when they go in to bake,  the butter doesn't just slide off the apple. You want it to caramelise. I basted the apples in apple juice, with a touch of vin santo, and the taste is great, but I didn't get the golden caramelly surface I wanted. And at the end of the cooking time, the apples were too hard still. Some tweaks needed for next time.
I love the peppercorn idea tho' and loved getting the accompaniments together - the blueberry frozen yoghurt, and the divine shortbread. If I plan better which flavours go well together, this approach of dessert + gelati + biscuit is really fun.

Mango sorbet

Mangoes were on special offer.

Unfortunately I was impatient, and should have left them to ripen more. But - by the time sugar was added, they were pretty good.

I used this BBC Food mango sorbet recipe:

Peeled and chopped 3 mangoes. Whizzed them up in the blender. Added icing sugar, lemon juice, then popped in the ice-cream machine, then into the freezer overnight.

Blueberry frozen yoghurt

I took one of my favourite breakfasts and made it into a dessert.

Whizzed up blueberries in the blender, passed through a sieve to remove skins and pips, added yoghurt and sugar, and popped it in the ice-cream machine. Then froze overnight. Done. Delicious.

Seville orange sorbet

There are several food items I get excited about. And this is one of them:
there's the new flavour of seville orange; the new flavour of Vin Santo; and the new machine (ice-cream maker).
That's a lot of schizz to be excited about.


I saved up my tips from the cafe and got the ice-cream maker. Kerching.
I froze the ice-cream maker bowl overnight then made this recipe from Waitrose for Seville Orange Sorbet. I swapped Cointreau for Vin Santo- as we had the latter in the house and I thought it would be delicious. It is. It adds a herbal note which is just gorgeous.

The sorbet set to a good consistency in the machine, then we put it in the freezer overnight. This evening, it was perfect: set so you could scoop it, not an ice-block, and really really cold.

The oranges are deeply deeply flavoursome - sharp, bitter - alongside the sugar and depth of flavour of the Vin Santo. The freezing temperature cuts through the sugar taste too, and its all balanced. This is a total winner. One of my favourite things yet.

More sorbets, frozen yoghurts and ice-creams on the way :) tho' summer time (and the fruits) will clearly allow it come into its own. Very exciting.