This Christmas I was given a monster who I have affectionately nicknamed The Sunbeam Gelateria Automatic Ice-Cream Maker. He is massive and makes deliciously creamy icecreams.
I owe Amber's mum Susan credit for my first two icecream creations - Mango Froghurt (frozen yoghurt) and Raspberry icecream, but I can feel my fingers itching to start trying some new creations and just yesterday I made a Lemon Gelato from the recipe book that was in the box the monster machine came in (it really is a monster, I've been avoiding transporting it into the kitchen at all costs, relying on whichever poor male is nearest to do the grunt work - although they are amply rewarded with icecream for their efforts!).
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Mango Froghurt:
400 g mango flesh, fresh or frozen
375 g low fat vanilla yoghurt
175 ml low fat milk
90 g caster sugar
1. Blend or process mango flesh until smooth. Reserve 150g of the flesh to be swirled through the frozen yoghurt at the end.
2. Using an electric mixer, mix the remaining mango with the yoghurt, milk and sugar until well combined.
3. Return mix to fridge until well chilled.
4. Position the Automatic Ice-cream Maker as directed on pages 6-8. Turn unit on, add mixture through the pouring hole.
5. Mixture will be ready once the paddle starts to rotate in the other direction or has thickened, this will take about 35 minutes.
6. Turn unit off; remove lid and paddle. Using a spatula gently fold through the remaining mango pulp just enough to give a swirled effect. Carefully spoon mixture into a plastic 1 litre container; freeze until ready to serve.
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This is definitely the healthiest of the three icecreams I've made so far, containing no cream (don't worry, it's still delicious!!). It's also the easiest of the three to make - all you have to do is stick all the ingredients in a mixmaster and turn it on!
Once the mango froghurt had done its freezing (but was still quite soft) I stirred through some mango chunks.
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Raspberry Icecream:
600g fresh raspberries
1 1/2 cups sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 large eggs
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk
1. Toss the raspberries, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and the lemon juice together in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.
2. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the remaining 3/4 cup sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Pour in the heavy cream and milk and whisk to blend.
3. Drain the juice from the raspberries into the cream mixture and blend. Mash the raspberries until puréed and stir them into the cream mixture.
4. Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer's instructions.
Makes generous 1 quart.
Note: If you prefer a chunkier raspberry ice cream, return the raspberries to the refrigerator after pouring off the juice. After the ice cream stiffens (about 2 minutes before it is done), add the whole raspberries, then continue freezing until the ice cream is ready.
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Note: Although the recipe called for fresh raspberries, the frozen ones I used ended up tasting really nice, and if you use pre-frozen raspberries instead of fresh ones it cuts down a lot of the time you'd otherwise spend waiting for everything to get cold.
Stirring the pulp and the raspberry juice through the cream, milk, sugar and egg mixture.
Raspberry icecream post-freeze!
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Lemon Gelato:
1 quantity sugar syrup (which requires 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water)
1/4 cup lemon zest
2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2/3 cup thickened cream
1. To make the sugar syrup, combine water and sugar in a saucepan over low heat until dissolved, then bring to the boil and boil for 3 minutes. While this boils, add the lemon juice and zest.
2. Chill lemony syrup mixture in the freezer.
3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve to remove the zest.
4. Whisk together the lemon syrup and cream in a jug.
5. Pour into your icecream monster and (following the particular instructions of your machine) and let it do it's job until the icecream is cold and thickened (mine is an automatic machine, so it's not necessary to refrigerate any parts of the icecream maker over-night, but some machines do require this)
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When life gives you lemons...
Make lemon gelato!
- Scot Nicholls
My Lemon Gelato had its debut tonight and performed exceedingly well! It's nice and tangy but also really creamy and smooth and delicious! As you'd expect, then, it is also the most tedious to make (although it's really not that hard, I just have a tendency to require immediate results).
I used around 10 lemons just to get the 1/4 cup of rind and the 2/3 cup of juice, but it was definitely worth it. I've had orders to make a second batch, so I can only hope now that I don't run out of lemons!
Today I made cinnamon teacakes! I'm not sure where I got the recipe from, but I've had it for ages and it's a delicious cake and really simple to make. It's pretty much just a normal, unambiguous, nothing-too-special cake...that is, until you take it out of the oven and swamp it with melted butter and cinnamon and sugar!!
