Vivid! Blackberry Ice Cream

 

 

I so loved the colour of this ice cream when I served it. Let's be honest, ice cream can be a bit beige, even if it is the most gorgeous tasting thing, and I loved the fact that this ice cream screamed anything but; lively, bright, vivid!

 

Now I have made room in my freezer for my ice cream churn, I am experimenting with ice cream and seeing if I can come up with something pretty lovely, after discovering that you can make pretty nice, refreshing ice cream without making a custard, such as using condensed milk and cream here. I decided to use yoghurt as a kind of lighter, refreshing alternative, despite loving the unctuous creamy ice cream.

 

So, I bought some 2% fat yoghurt (hoping that it wouldn't be so grainy after churning and God, I need some fat!) Fage Total and unearthed some frozen blackberries from the freezer that have been in there for too long actually. I cooked the blackberries down with sugar, a splosh of blackberry liqueur from my 'When I go to France, I buy interesting liqueurs in Carrefour before boarding the ferry' stash and some salt and then passed it through a sieve and then boiled the juice so it became perceptibly thicker and syrupy. Added to the yoghurt, the juice swirls and goes from something dark and intense to something richly purple. And delish!

 

Blackberry Ice Cream

 

Makes about a litre of ice cream, ish.

 

Ingredients:

 

500g blackberries (Mine were frozen, and I let them defrost a little to generate some juice)

50g sugar added gradually, but be prepared to add more depending on the tartness of the blackberries

A pinch of salt to taste

A splosh of blackberry liqueur (optional)

A 500g tub of 2% Greek yoghurt

 

Method:

 

 

 

Put the blackberries into a pan with a splosh of water and some of the sugar. Cook over a gentle heat allowing the blackberries to break down and the sugar dissolve. Taste the juice and add some more of the sugar so that eventually you taste, well, sweetened blackberry.

 

Once the sugar has dissolved, pass the blackberry mixture through a fine sieve to separate the juice from the seeds. Discard the residue in the sieve and place the sieved juice back into a pan. Add a little liqueur if you like.

 

 

 

 Boil the juice rapidly until it becomes syrupy. When it has thickened perceptibly, carefully taste the syrup again. Add a little salt to bring out the blackberry flavour. You want something strongly flavoured as the flavour will diminish when added to the yoghurt and when it is frozen.

 

 

 

Set up your ice cream maker and pour in the yoghurt. Then add the juice and churn. I churned for about half an hour, forty minutes.

 

Put the half frozen mixture into a suitable tub and put in the freezer to continue the freezing process.

 

 

Vivid!

 

More from the pudding club - berry sponge puddings

I must admit to really adoring sponge puddings and I think it is something within my English DNA that means that I find it hard to resist the sponge, the fruit and the custard, or cream, or ice cream; whichever is your chosen creaminess.

This pudding was inspired by 'Very Berry Puds' from Jill Dupleix's marvellous cookery book 'Lighten Up'. It satisfies my needs for a sponge pudding, but also is a way of using up the glut of fruits that I have in my freezer. I am extremely unfortunate to receive lots of fruit during the Summer and Autumn, from sour redcurrants to sweet Victoria plums and indeed I tend to buy fruit when in season and at a good price and freeze it so I am able to have a taste of Summer in the depths of Winter. On this occasion I used blackberries but any 'berry' fruit would work fine I would think. Because I used blackberries that were frozen I decided to give them a little oomph with a sprinkling of sugar and a splosh of blackberry liqueur (one of my stash from France; I can't resist a liqueur purchase whenever I visit) but this is by no means necessary; a sprinkling of sugar or a different alcohol (port or sherry?) would work just as well.

I used dariole moulds here, which are like little pudding moulds for the uninitiated, but you could use ramekins or any other suitable ovenproof pot. I imagine with a little vigilance when in the oven, and a bit of patience you could make one big pudding in a pudding bowl, though it will take longer to cook.

Berry Sponge Puddings, adopted from 'Very Berry Puds' from 'Lighten Up' by Jill Dupleix.

Serves 4 - 6, depending on mould size and appetite. For us, it fed mum, dad, Lola and Finn twice.

Ingredients:

125g softened butter, plus extra for greasing the pots.

125g caster sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

125g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

200g berries (I used blackberries)

plus, liqueur for marinating the berries (optional) and sugar (to taste - depending on the sourness of your berries and your own palate)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180c and Gas 4

Butter the moulds well and add sugar to the berries and a splosh of liqueur if you like and allow to marinate for a few minutes or so.

Beat the butter and caster sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs well, one at a time. If the mixture starts to look split, add a spoonful of the flour to bring it back.

Sift the flour, salt and baking powder and then add to the mix in thirds, alternating with the milk. Then add the vanilla.

Beat until the mixture is smooth. No longer.

Put a layer of berries in the bottom of the moulds.

Top with the sponge mixture, only filling the moulds about three quarters full. The mixture will rise.

Stand the moulds in a baking tray and surround with boiling water so that it comes about two thirds of the way up the sides of the moulds.

Bake for about 35 - 40 mins or until browned and springy to the the touch.

To turn out, run a knife around the sides of the mould and then invert into a suitable bowl or rimmed plate.

Heat the remaining berries in a pan with some sugar, to taste, and a splosh of alcohol or water. You are looking to create something a little saucy.

When you are happy with the look and the taste of the sauce, spoon it over the puddings.

If you wish to gild the lily, add cream, ice cream, custard...