Raspberry Ice cream

The soft fruit season's started early this year and most PYO farms are already open for strawberry picking.

As always there is a massive variation of prices depending on where you buy - some are over £1 a kilo cheaper than others. Obviously, the distance you need to travel will be a consideration, but if you're in the north of the County, check out Wymeswold Fruit Farm on the A6006 between Wymeswold and the A46. Their prices for strawberries are incredibly good value at £2.40 per kilo - that's only about £1.10 a pound! If you're buying them elsewhere, make sure that they're British (and preferably local). If not, demand to know why not!

Anyway, daughter Emma appeared the other day with a couple of punnets of raspberries demanding that they be turned into ice cream!

Grr, the photo gremlins have done it again. I made the ice cream and put it into the freezer to harden a little before taking a picture of it. When I return, it's to find the family scoffin' bowls full of the stuff! To say that they like it would be an understatement. This picture is a 'snap' of what was left in Emma's bowl! As you can see, she's one for sloshing it around the bowl to soften it before she eats it!

This ice cream is not made using the traditional custard method; it uses a mousse base which is better if you don't have an ice-cream machine as it doesn't form large ice crystals readily.

This is not one of my own recipes but is taken from Leith's Cookery Bible. The ingredient amounts have been adjusted so that it fits my machine.

Raspberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

300g Raspberries
50g Icing sugar
45g Granulated sugar
75ml Water
2 Egg yolks
200ml Double cream
A squeeze of lemon juice

Method

Liquidise or mash the raspberries and sieve them. Add the icing sugar and mix. Heat the sugar and water in a saucepan and boil it to the 'thread' stage (about 108°C). Let it cool for about a minute and then pour it onto the egg yolks and whisk them together until the mix is thick, pale and mousse like. Let it cool down and add the cream, fruit and lemon juice before churning in an ice cream maker.

This method is also good for those who don't have an ice-cream maker: just shove the lot into a freezer and give it a whisk every hour or so until it's set.