Another unforgivably long pause between posts on the blog. Again, no particular reason other than life, which is full to overflowing these days. Juggling work, spending quality time with the children, fitting in a daily work out, recovering from sinus problems and two chronic injuries, seeing our friends – I have so many balls in the air, I suppose it was inevitable that I would have to drop one or two. I’ve been cooking of course, but it has taken this drastic change to our way of life, brought on by a global pandemic, to allow me to slow down, to experiment, to create again in the kitchen.
The subject of this post pays homage to that process of creation that I don’t always have the time or courage for. I’m good at choosing a great recipe, following it, tweaking here and adjusting there to elevate it… but I’m still pretty nervous about creating my own. Fear of failure, coupled with limited time (and often ingredients) always holds me back. It is ironic that I am choosing this time, when we are in lockdown in our homes with limited access to ingredients, to try new things. But if this period of house arrest has taught me anything, it is that life is short, we have so much freedom in how we choose to live… and if we waste any opportunity, it may not come to us again.
And now that the philosophising is out of my system… lemon curd ice cream is something I have wanted to make for as long as I can remember. I have a serious penchant for lemon curd and always have a jar in my fridge. I love it slathered on hot, buttered toast, swirled through creamy, Greek yoghurt, sandwiched between layers of simple butter sponge cake, or drizzled over meringue with a generous dollop of whipped cream. It is so versatile, so down right delicious – sweet but not overly so, tangy, silkily smooth, and that colour – just looking at it makes me happy.
The world is too full of lemon sorbets. Lemon ice cream is pretty difficult to come by, though I have tried (both tasting and making) a few. I wanted to create something altogether different from the really astringent, citrusy flavour of lemon sorbet. I basically wanted lemon curd in ice cream form – something that had its rich, full-bodied flavour, something both lemony and luscious.
I started with a recipe from Caroline and Robin Weir’s amazing compendium of ice cream recipes. It’s the only place I’ve really come across a properly structured recipe for lemon curd ice cream, and with Heston Blumenthal’s stamp of approval, I figured it was as an auspicious place to start as any. This recipe used whipped cream, Greek yoghurt, lemon curd and lemon zest. The result was refreshing – creamy, with a hint of iciness for textural interest and a nice lemon flavour. Not overly sweet, it was a lovely ice cream for a post-lunch dessert on a hot day. I felt though, that it didn’t bring out the flavour of the lemon curd enough (easily fixed with a drizzle of lemon curd on top) and it didn’t have the richness and depth of flavour that I was looking for.
For take two, I decided to try a basic vanilla ice cream base instead of Greek yoghurt, combined with whipped cream and lemon curd. I used the recipe for a standard French vanilla ice cream from Caroline and Robin Weir’s book and upped the quantity of lemon curd to bring out its flavour. This had more of the flavour I was looking for. Replacing the yoghurt with a custard base brought the rich creaminess I was after and the increase in quantity of lemon curd worked well. Personally, the French vanilla was a little too sweet for my liking, but went down well with the rest of the family.
I’ve still not quite landed on the ice cream of my day dreams, but think I know how to get there – third time lucky, so they say!
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