White Christmas Ice Cream

Here is my recipe suggestion for 'White Christmas Ice Cream'. Well, the ice cream is not exactly white .... it's more off white! However, it is made with white chocolate as one of the key ingredients.

This is a seriously indulgent rich ice cream. Using eggs, fresh milk and heavy cream as the base, you then add some of your favourite white chocolate and it takes the flavour sensation to another level!

How To Make White Chocolate Christmas Ice Cream 

First, the ingredients you will need for the recipe:

4 egg yolks
1/2 pint (250ml) fresh milk
1/2 pint (250ml) double/heavy cream
3 oz (75g) caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or according to taste)
9oz (250g) white chocolate

Method - Get the chocolate ready first!
Carefully chop the white chocolate into small chunks. Place into 2 separate but equal portions in 2 small bowls and keep to one side for later.

Making the custard base and final ice cream in 9 easy steps
Step 1 -
Pour the milk into a saucepan. Bring slowly up to the boil.

Step 2 - While the milk is heating up, in another bowl mix together the egg yolks and sugar - beat until thick.

Step 3 - Pour the hot (but not boiled) milk into the mixture of egg yolks and sugar whilst stirring.

Step 4 - Pour the mixture back into the pan and heat gently, stirring until the custard thickens. DO NOT BRING TO THE BOIL OR IT WILL PROBABLY CURDLE. 

Step 5 - When you can see a film form over the back of your spoon remove the pan from the heat.

Step 6 - Stir in the vanilla extract and half of the chopped white chocolate pieces.

Step 7 - Keep stirring until all the chocolate has melted. Leave to cool.

Step 8 - When fully cooled, stir in the cream.

Step 9 - Transfer the whole mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

* If you don't have an ice cream maker Christmas is the perfect time to get one! Check out these ice cream makers from Amazon starting at as little as $27 and going right up to pro level. *

Christmas Ice Cream

Make ice cream part of your Christmas food celebrations. I have no less than 8 recipes ideally suited to being Christmas ice cream. Some are rich and creamy, some are sorbets and one or two have alcoholic content so there's something for everyone.

Most of these 8 recipes take a little time to make. Some require a custard base to be made first such as the rich white chocolate ice cream recipe. Others have steps that require cooling times of up to an hour such as the white wine sorbet - but it's all well worth the time and effort.

Happy Christmas to ice cream lovers everywhere .... I think that's everyone anyway!

Easter Egg Ice Cream

Over the last 10 years I have learned and indeed written a lot about making ice cream. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that ICE CREAM is a vast subject! Perhaps that's why I enjoy it so much - there is always something new to learn, always a challenge that awaits.

When it comes to Easter, however, I have realised that there is only one truly appropriate homemade ice cream you can make .... Easter egg ice cream.

Chocolate Easter eggs come in all shapes and sizes and the chocolate might be white, dark or milk. My mother, who is 80 this year, recalls fondly the chocolate easter eggs of her childhood. It was 1930s England and they were always milk chocolate eggs, made by Cadbury. Only about 3 inches tall, they had no fancy foil wrapping but were memorable for the tortoise-shell pattern on the outside of the chocolate shell. As one of 9 children, she only got 1 easter egg but relished every bit and there was never any left over in the household!

How times have changed .... today, according to many people I know and from what I have read in the media, there is invariably some Easter egg chocolate left over in the average household .... often because there have simply been too many bought or received as presents. Before the holiday comes to an end, everyone has had more than their fair share of chocolate so an Easter egg or two gets put to one side 'for a rainy day'.

Well, whether you wait for the rain to come or not, just remember that you can always use up that spare Easter egg in some homemade ice cream. My suggestions?

Milk Chocolate Ice Cream

White Chocolate Ice Cream

And if you don't use up all that Easter egg chocolate in making your ice cream, remember you can grate it to use as a fabulous ice cream topping.

Happy Easter .... eggs and all!

Easter Foods, Traditions, Recipes

Celebrating Easter is a tradition in many parts of the world and usually involves a short holiday, allowing people to make time to get together with family and friends. Sharing the celebration of Easter also means sharing food so it's not surprising that there are also traditional foods for eating at this special time of year. These include hot cross buns, simnel cake and, of course, easter eggs.

Why then are certain foods associated with Easter? It's a good question and one which many of us overlook, simply taking forgranted that we may be given some simnel cake or a hot cross bun when out visiting over Easter. To answer this and other questions about Easter I decided to read more and I found 2 great websites which I'd like to share with you - for no reason other than they are really good, interesting resources of information.

The first is called Kaboose which is a well established site all about family, food, home and crafts. This page is worth visiting - ideas for Easter recipes (including an Easter Basket Cake).

The second is a page on the BBC website about Easter traditions which covers why certain foods have a connection with Easter - eg. simnel cake and hot cross buns. It also goes into the tradition of Easter eggs and why they are still so popular today.

If you are cooking a special Easter dinner this weekend, there's certainly no shortage of ideas for good recipes to try and, not wanting to miss out on such an opportunity, I'm going to add my 'three peneth' (great, old Yorkshire saying!) by suggesting one of my own recipes - rich white chocolate ice cream. I made some recently and even went so far as to add a little mashed banana as an experiment. The end result was delicious though a single scoop was more than enough for me as it was very rich!

Whatever you're doing over Easter - have a happy one!