Rhubarb Popsicles - A Special Ice Cream Treat

As my regular readers will know, I enjoy growing my own fruit and am particularly proud of my annual crop of rhubarb. John, the owner of my local garden nursery, has even said it's the finest he's ever seen - and he's seen a lot of rhubarb over the years!

Rhubarb is one of those foods that people seem to love or hate, nothing in between. Personally I love it and the fact that it's actually good for you is a bonus. Rich in iron and high in fibre, rhubarb makes for a great dessert whether stewed or in pies and crumbles. Served hot with fresh vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or custard. Delicious!

But what about a cold rhubarb dessert? Well, there's rhubarb yogurt which is nice but what about even colder than that? Rhubarb and custard popsicles! Simple but unusual and on hot days this summer it could prove a real winner for the family.

All you need is your freezer, a set of popsicle molds, some popsicle sticks, about 1 1/2 lbs of fresh rhubarb chopped into small pieces (obviously stalks only!), 3-4 tablespoons of sugar (according to taste), 1/2 pint of heavy cream and 1lb of vanilla custard (ready made or homemade, cooled). Cook the rhubarb, water and sugar together in a pan for about 5 minutes then put to one side to cool thoroughly. After whipping the cream into peaks, stir the custard into it well. Take the popiscle molds and fill each one first with a spoonful of cooled, cooked rhubarb followed by a spoonful of cream/custard mix. Keep the process going until each mold is filled. Place the popsicle sticks into the mixture/molds and then put in your freezer for about 5 hours.

For those of you who thought rhubarb and custard was only a hot dish for a winter's evening, think again!

It's All Rhubarb!

As you know, I recently wrote about how the rhubarb season is now upon us. I love rhubarb - the sound of the word alone is wonderful!

I have made rhubarb crumble, rhubarb sorbet and now rhubarb and custard ice cream with the rhubarb growing in my garden. The trouble is it grows so fast I can't keep up with it and I've run out of space in the freezer! Never mind, I suppose you can have too much of a good thing ....

Here, however, I can share with you some of the photographs of my rhubarb and what I have made using it.

Photo 1

Freshly picked rhubarb photographed within seconds of being picked from my garden. I went on to use this in my rhubarb sorbet recipe.

Photo 2

Rhubarb crumble.

I served this with homemade custard.
A delicious hot dessert.

Photo 3

Rhubarb and custard ice cream.
My husband had a quizzical look on his face when I said I was going to make this but soon changed his expression when he tasted the end product.

He even asked for a second helping!

Ice Cream Photos - Rhubarb Crumble & Vanilla Ice Cream

Continuing with the theme of sharing some of the photos I've taken over the years relating to all things ice cream, this post is takes 'rhubarb and custard' as its theme.

For some reason the rhubarb in our garden flourishes annually beyond all our expectations. Needless to say I have become adept at making rhubarb crumble :)

PHOTO 1 - RHUBARB CRUMBLE
This picture was taken literally seconds after it came out of the oven. It was still bubbling around the edges. So what do you serve with rhubarb crumble? Custard perhaps or cream .... maybe .... but what about vanilla ice cream?

PHOTO 2 - FRESH VANILLA ICE CREAM
Here is a batch of homemade vanilla ice cream that I made with my favorite ice cream maker at home - photographed just as it came out of the machine.

Imagine a scoop of it on top of freshly made, hot, homemade rhubarb crumble. Now that's what I call a (n)ice dessert!

Read about rhubarb on BBC Good Food.

Pink Ice Cream For A Royal Wedding

Tomorrow is the Royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. It will be a day of great celebration for London and the rest of the UK and I'm sure many others around the world will look in on the tv coverage of what will doubtless be a wonderful ceremony.

The world has had all too little of good news in recent weeks so it will be an opportunity for people to smile and enjoy the romance of the day.

I don't know what the 'royal chefs' have in mind for the wedding breakfast menu, but in case they're stuck for ideas, here's one .... PINK ICE CREAM.

Pink is generally associated with romance and I can't think of a more romantic idea than a prince falling in love and marrying the girl of his dreams! The recipe I have in mind is for rhubarb sorbet. With the first rhubarb of the season just flourishing, late April is the perfect time to make your own fresh, homemade rhubarb sorbet.

Here are a few of my previous ice cream blog posts relating to rhubarb and ice cream.

Rhubarb Ice Cream

This week saw the first flourish of rhubarb in our garden. Knowing it's at its best when young, thin and very pink, I uprooted a crop and decided to get 'stewing'.

Stewed rhubarb is delicious with custard or yoghurt but I fancied trying out a sorbet recipe. The result was a delicious and refreshing, pink ice cream. Here is a picture I took as I served it up for my husband (he likes kiwi fruit hence the presentation!). His vote? He loved it. Success!

If you fancy trying some go to my new rhubarb sorbet recipe page.

Valentine Ice Cream Has To Be Pink

Anyone who can resist a Valentine's Day ice cream has a will of iron! Let's face it most of us look for any excuse to eat ice cream and if there's a special occasion around the corner we will make the most of it. Valentine's Day is associated with love and the color most associated with love is pink.

Pink ice cream sandwiches for Valentine's Day
made by my friend Barbara

Pink ice cream on Valentine's Day is perfect. Giving a pink ice cream treat to a loved one helps get the message of love across loud and clear and even if you just want to give a Valentine's treat out of friendship or just a bit of fun, pink ice cream is still probably the best choice.

Pink ice cream of course usually strawberry but it doesn't have to be ... I made a fabulous pink rhubarb sorbet ice cream. Here is the recipe

If after all I've said you don't fancy pink ice cream then here are some fabulous ice cream flavors you can try making at home using my tried and tested recipes .....
Rhubarb & Custard
Rocky Road
Creme Brulee Ice Cream

My rocky road ice cream

Fresh Fruit For Homemade Ice Cream

There is nothing like using fresh fruit to make your own homemade ice cream and it is one of the reasons why I have developed my own little fruit garden at home. It's taken a few years but the effort is well worth it.

I have planted and grown a wide variety of fruits and used most of them in my ice cream recipes.

My home fruit includes:

• apples


• strawberries


• blueberries


• raspberries


• pears


• plums


• gooseberries


• cherries


• blackcurrants


• rhubarb

The most popular ice cream recipe in our house using our own homegrown fruit has to be strawberry ice cream followed closely by blueberry ice cream.

However, my recent rhubarb sorbet certainly got the 'thumbs up'.

So on those sultry, hot summer evenings this July, it might just prove the best of all possible homemade ice creams ....

(Please don't let the weather let me down on this one!)

Raspberries & Ice Cream With Fleur's Flair

It's the time of year for enjoying fresh fruit and ice cream. Personally, I think there's nothing better than fresh, ripe strawberries with a scoop of ice cream! Here's a picture of some fruit picked freshly from my own garden. My strawberry patch is quite small but VERY productive as is my raspberry patch and rhubarb patch and I only have 2 cherry trees but these alongside there are blackcurrant bushes, redcurrant bushes, gooseberry bushes, blueberry plants plus several apple trees, 2 plum trees and a pear tree, meaning that the summer months offer me and my family plenty of opportunity for enjoying fresh fruit - whether with ice cream, in fruit salads or even in fruit pies.

This brings me to a conversation I had recently with a dear friend who lives in London; it was one of those conversations where we found ourselves digressing from one subject to another. It had just been released in the news that the American painter and writer Fleur Cowles had died, aged 101 and I knew that she had been a good friend of my friend in London. Though I had never met Fleur, I knew of her and her delightful husband Tom, having read one of Fleur's books "She Made Friends And Kept Them" - a fascinating read. So naturally my friend and I chatted about Fleur a little and she volunteered a wonderful story which she has happily consented to my sharing with you here .... "I'm sure Fleur would have approved" she said.

One of Fleur Cowles' passions was arranging regular dinner parties at her London home and weekend get-togethers at her Sussex home to which she would invite her 'famous' friends -artists, actors, politicians, writers and so on. Luciano Pavarotti, Yehudi Menhuin, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Laurence Olivier, James Stewart, Cary Grant ... these are just a few who appeared on the guest list. My friend in London was invited to spend the weekend at Fleur's Sussex home on several occasions and remembers very fondly the pride with which the home-grown fruit was served as a dessert - when in season, it would be raspberries freshly picked from Fleur's garden served with ice cream. Although quite a few years ago now, my friend insists she can still recall the wonderful taste and how it represented a definitive "English Summer". A marvellous memory and a reflection of how Fleur Cowles touched the lives of many people - even mine!

My friend paid a delightful tribute to Fleur Cowles recently in her own "Letters From London" blog - called simply "Dear Fleur" it offers an intriguing insight into one of the most fascinating, individual women of the 20th century.

Easter Ice Cream Treats

Homemade ice cream is a special treat any time but particularly so on special holidays. Easter is a good example. Families and friends get together and often celebrate Easter by sharing a home-cooked meal.

"What's for dessert?" is a common question from the children sat at the dinner table and if the answer by any chance is "Ice cream!" then you can be sure there will be shrieks of glee. Such is the appeal of ice cream.

So what's a good ice cream to make for Easter? Well, it depends upon whether you want to stick with standard favorites or be more adventurous. So I'm going to make a suggestion in each direction ....

A top 10 favorite and usually a safe bet to be popular amongst guests is banana ice cream; it appeals to children and adults alike and is an easy ice cream to make.

Being more adventurous and if you have a little extra time to devote to your ice cream making, you could go for rhubarb and vanilla custard ice cream. My family loves it!

If neither of the above appeals to you as an Easter ice cream then there's a wider selection of ice cream recipes available on the following pages - popular ice cream and unusual ice cream.

Whatever ice cream you choose, make it a Happy Easter!

Ice Lollies, Ice Pops, Popsicles & Ice Blocks - Ice Cream On A Stick

Many of my readers are from the USA & Canada and to them the term "popsicle" is a familiar one. However, for the 1 in 5 of you who read my Blog Of Ice Cream and live elsewhere in the world, this word will be nothing more than a word you have perhaps heard in American movies. So let's look into this a little more ....

First of all, where did "popsicle" come from? Well, it was originally a brand name but, like many brand names (eg. Hoover), it was adopted as a genericized trade mark referring to any ice pop irrespective of brand. That perhaps explains why it's a term indigenous to North America.

In Britain the more familiar term is "ice lolly"

In Ireland it's "ice pop" or "lolly ice"

In Australia & New Zealnd it's "ice block" or sometimes "icy pole" (again from a brand name)

So who first made an "ice pop" or "ice lolly"? According to Wikipedia, it was back in 1905 when Frank Epperson (aged just 11) left a glass of soda water powder and water out on his porch with a wooden mixing stick in it. The temperature dropped below freezing that night and the next morning Frank found the soda water frozen inside the glass. When he ran it under hot water he found he could remove the frozen chunk using the stick ... and then naturally he ate it!

If you like popsicles - or ice pops - or ice lollies - or ice blocks (I'm sure I will have missed someone out here and if I apologise!), then try my rhubarb popsicle recipe. Delicious! There are also some great popsicle makers & molds to buy on the ICR Amazon store.