This is a recipe from Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer, which is a good read. I rather enjoy this smooth, velvety, honey-flavored ice cream. I'm not generally a fan of ice cream—my favorite flavor is mango, then after, green tea—but this is just right, and really unique. Of course, it's not really an ice cream, according to Nigella—and she's quite right, as this stuff tastes ghastly completely frozen. It tastes best almost frozen, but not actually frozen. As I've only tried this a few times with uniform results, here's a bit of experience from Nigella: "For some reason, sometimes I end up with a block of uniformly buff cream, and at others I'm left with a honeyed, resin-coloured stripe along the base." In either case, it's delicious. I've got a few variations on her recipe, as I don't find it very practical to have a block of melting cream on my hands. I prefer use wine glasses or custard cups instead of a loaf tin. I also like to layer the honey, pine nuts, and semifreddo, and the effect is quite eye-catching and delicious.
1 egg 4 egg yolks ¼ cup honey for flavoring, plus extra for serving 1 pint heavy cream pine nuts, toasted
With a whisk, beat the egg and egg yolks with the honey in a bowl, in a double boiler over gently simmering water, until the mixture is pale and thick. Whip the heavy cream until thick—it should form gentle, rolling peaks—then gently fold in the egg and honey mixture. Throw in a few pine nuts into the custard cup or glass, then drizzle a little honey on top. Add a dollop of the semifreddo mixture. Then the pine nuts and honey, again. Layer custard and honey and pine nuts until half full (it's rich, and quite sweet), sprinkle some pine nuts on top, and pop it into the freezer for two to three hours. When the semifreddo mixture is almost frozen, take them out and serve. "If you've got some dark, syrupy—indeed, honey-colored—[dessert] wine to drink while you eat this, so much the better."
This recipe is available on public domain sites, so don't worry, I'm not ripping her off. Thursday, July 08, 2004 »0 comments
