Homemade ice cream is one of life’s great pleasures and it is very easy to make.
Of course, there are some great ice creams nowadays that you can buy in the supermarket but nothing quite comes close to your own and this recipe is so much easier to make than the classic method as you don’t need to go to all the bother of making a home-made custard. This is really a matter of stirring some rather wonderful ingredients together and then sitting back and accepting the inevitable compliments, safe in the knowledge that it really wasn’t an entirely taxing experience in the first place. But no less delicious for that and not necessarily a detail that you have to share.
I made this ice cream the other day for a Friday night supper party. I was rather short of time and had one of those tubs of peaches rapidly ripening in the larder. The ginger ice cream made a lovely accompaniment to them which I braised in a marsala syrup, stuffed with amaretti and dark sugar and spiced up with some cinnamon and vanilla.
STEM GINGER ICE CREAM
Serves Six to Eight
1 tub mascarpone
250ml double cream
Four pieces of stem ginger, finely chopped plus syrup from the jar
2 tablespoons ginger preserve (I use Waitrose own)
2 egg whites
50g caster sugar
Lightly whip the cream and whisk in the mascarpone. Add the ginger preserve, the finely chopped stem ginger and about three tablespoons of the syrup. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and then gradually add the caster sugar until you have a glossy meringue. Add to the ice cream mixture and fold in.
Pour the whole lot into an ice cream machine and churn. If you don’t have a machine then put in the freezer in a plastic tub and whisk with a fork every half an hour to break up the ice crystals that will be forming. You will have to do this about four or five times.
Keep in the freezer but take out and put in the fridge for about 45 minutes before serving if you are not using it immediately.
PEACHES IN MARSALA with AMARETTI
Serves Eight
Eight fairly ripe peaches
Eight amaretti biscuits (crunchy ones)
Dark muscovado sugar
400ml sweet marsala
100g caster sugar
One fresh vanilla pod
2 sticks of cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 180c
Remove the skin from the peaches by sitting them in boiling water for a minute or two. The skins will slip off easily.
Cut in half and remove the stone. Put in an ovenproof dish and fill the centre of each peach half with some crumbled biscuit and a teaspoon of sugar. Heat the marsala with the caster sugar and pour around the peaches. Bake in the oven for forty minutes, basting the peaches occasionally.
Serve warm or at room temperature, with the ice cream or softly whipped double cream.
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