Pflaumen baisertorte - Flavour King plum meringue pie with pistachio ice cream for our annual Cheltenham Race Week dinner

"You're eating that ice cream..... like a teenage girl!" says Henry at last Thursday's dinner party [#kitchenbanter]

Me?

You know that pistachio ice cream you get at Italian geleaterias? Disappointing huh? Never quite tastes how you want it to. I've been meaning to try making it for years. Last Wednesday night I finally got round to it. It is now my new favourite ice cream!

There are 2 routes you can go down with ice cream - the custard based route or the Phildelphia style (without egg - not because it contains Philadelphia cheese) route. I much prefer the Philadelphia version for my events - saves so may problems with pregnant guests, who, although I would use pasteurised egg still are wary of eating it.  Better safe than sorry!
I use the Philadelphia ice cream recipe from the book (now fallen apart at the spine) that I got in '95 - the summer I'd finished A levels and tested many of the recipes during that summer with the fruit from our garden - Ices: The Definitive Guide.

Pistachio ice cream. Precious.

Take a basic Philadelphia style ice cream mix and add pistachios. Lots of them! I think that's where ice cream manufacturers go wrong - there's no point scrimping on the main ingredient! To make another type of ice cream you can miss out the pistachios and add something else using the same recipe - fruit puree for example or another of my favourites is a ginger version - add ginger wine (about 150 ml) and chopped stem ginger.

375ml   Milk
50g      Caster sugar
125ml  Condensed milk
250ml  Double cream
Pinch of salt
250g   Green pistachio nuts.

Should make 1 litre. (I doubled this)

Heat a small bit of the milk in a pan with the sugar till the sugar melts. No point putting all the milk in - just takes longer to cool down, so longer time till you can start making ice cream. 

Blitz the pistachios in your food processor. Pulse it first so the pistachio nuts are just crushed. Take away maybe 1/5 of these pulsed nuts to add in at the end. Then carry on blitzing the remaining nuts to infinity - or as long as you can manage. Eventually it turns into a paste like the above - a ball of nutty madness. 

Blend all  the remaining ingredients + reserved pistachios together with the sugar/ milk mix and churn in the ice cream machine. If you don't have an ice cream machine there is a link to still freezing method here. 

FAQ How much ice cream for one portion?

500 ml ice cream does 8 scoops.

Mini plum meringue pie for a lunch buffet delivery the following day.

Oh - you want a recipe for the plum meringue pie as well? Well no time - there's the weekend just gone to clear up from, washing up to do, emails to answer and a new week to organise.

But, like every dish just break down the prep:

• Pastry case tips here. 
• Vanilla poached plums mixed with a little bramley apple puree to thicken it. Actually I roasted them this time - same way you do with rhubarb.
• Italian meringue using this recipe. Pipe it on top & blow torch it/ bake it. If you bake it you can also heat up the plum filling.  

Random fact

Pistachio nuts are not nuts. They're fruit.


Related posts:

Lemon meringue pie
Baileys ice cream
Vanilla poached plums
Zwetschgenkuchen - German plum cake

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Pear and almond tart with Nutella ice cream

Made this for a huge Nutella fan - well she said she was a huge Nutella fan but she had never heard of Nutella Day (today by the way) - so I enlightened her and gave her a link to all the Nutella Day recipes. 

Nutella (philadelphia style) ice cream

[Philadelphia style means egg-less by the way rather than containing Philadelphia cheese]

375ml milk
75ml condensed milk
250ml double cream
Nutella to taste (add as much as you can handle!)
pinch salt

Warm all ingredients together in a pan to incporporate the Nutella. Cool. Churn in the ice cream machine or still freeze - there's a link on a previous ice cream recipe to do that along with a tip for how to serve lots of portions of ice cream in one go & suggestions for ice cream machines. 

You can also add in toasted hazelnuts to the ice cream towards the end to make it extra nutty. I put some on top. Then piped nutella on to the plate as well - you can never have too much!

For the tuile biscuits to sit the ice cream on (saves it melting & sliding across the plate on the way to the table) see link here. 

Where did my love of Nutella come from? I once worked with a chef from Alba where Nutella originated. Naturally he spread the Nutella love wherever he went. Thus marmite toast was alternated with Nutella toast to keep the chefs going through the night service. We also dipped digestive biscuits in Nutella - instant comfort rush!

World Nutella Day is hosted by Ms Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso - well done you!

Related posts

Nutella brioche crown

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Assiette of desserts with mini heart shaped scones - Wedding catering in Chepstow

Assiette of dessert with mini heart scones with clotted cream and jam,  lemon meringue pie,  ricotta and raspberry cheesecake, spoon of sticky toffee pudding and homemade Baileys ice cream

Heart shape scones - used in the dessert above. 

Italian meringue on lemon meringue pies gets glazed with blow torch

Looks like this will be one of the last events we will be doing at Wyelands in Chepstow - sadly the owners are taking it back into private ownership next month - they're downsizing to Wyelands, which makes you laugh slightly.

The kitchen there is infront of the dining table, so as the guests were eating the main course they could watch us putting the finishing touches to the dessert. Apparently we made it all look so easy. The secret is in the days of preparation beforehand.

Starter - pearl barley pea and mint risotto with grilled prawns, & mint pesto. No picture of the dessert -  as always so busy getting it out hot & on time forgot photo 

Related posts:

Previous assiette desserts we have served
What does 'assiette' mean? Assiette of desserts 12 July 

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Catering for a 40th birthday party - seabass and cauliflower poached in saffron, Grilled calves liver and bacon, Pineapple tarte tatin

The dining room end of the kitchen at Wellacres had been transformed by the time we got there:

We have cooked for this family around the same time every year since 2007 when Wellacres first opened for business. This time it was for 2 meals - last Saturday night, and then this special birthday last night. Great to see them again - among my favourite people to cook for.

As we had cooked for them so many times before it was nice to try something different for them.

Seabass and cauliflower poached in saffron and white wine with  cauliflower gremolata

 Firstly cauliflower was poached in white wine and chicken stock with a healthy amount of saffron just before we left, so the saffron flavour and colour would infuse into the cauliflower. Once we got to the house, I drained that liquid onto seabass fillets (Fillets were largish so 8 did 12). This was poached just before the guests were about to sit down.

Gremolata - fine grated cauliflower, lemon zest, fine grated garlic, chopped parsley. The gremolata sprinkled on top gives you a great fresh flavour.

Grilled calves liver and bacon with creamed potato, grilled organic portobello mushrooms, vine tomatoes and bearnaise sauce

The birthday girl's favourite is calves liver and bacon - so that is what we did! 

The calves liver I started grilling on the grill pan  as they started to eat the starter - last minute is best with calves liver. Where a lot of people go wrong with cooking liver at home is they cook it for ages till it's dry and tough. Much better when it's cooked quick - after grilling I just flashed it through the oven once they had finished the starter. It did create a bit of smoke in the kitchen - but luckily the smoke alarms at that house are very well behaved and we ventilated with the windows. Makes a good bit of 'kitchen theatre' while you're eating though as well as making a better result. 

There's spinach underneath the tomato - healthy living and some chantenay carrots and bearnaise sauce was served on the side - feast!

>tr>

Pineapple tarte tatin with pina colada ice cream

While the apple or banana tarte tatin are so popular, I also like this pinepple version. So did the guests. When you hear "Wow!" "Oh my God!" and "Yum!" while everyone's eating you know things are going ok. The pina colada ice cream was a hit as well. While I've done malibu and coconut ice cream before, this version was even better. After the hass sour cocktail Ms Marmitelover made at the avocado meal I helped with I discovered a new love of cocktails. Pina colada has to be on the top ten most popular - so why not  turn it into ice cream!

Pina Colada Ice Cream

Combination of my Baileys ice cream recipe and Nigella's pina colada ice cream. The lime juice adds a neccessary zing.

400ml tin coconut milk
500ml double cream
300ml pineapple juice (ish)
200g caster sugar
Juice 3 - 4 limes. Maybe more
Toasted dessicated coconut

Heat a ladle full of the cream with the sugar till sugar melts. No combine with the rest of the ingredients and chill in fridge. Churn in your ice cream machine till it starts freezing - takes a bit longer than other ice creams because of the alcohol content.

Need an ice cream machine? See 2 I like (at opposite ends of the cost scale) here.


Related posts

Thai style seabass with pinapple and cucumber salad
Baileys ice cream
1001 Kitchen Tips #22 - Chargrilling tip - I used for the liver so it didn't stick to the pan

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Waffles with chocolate sauce and ice cream

The first waffles I had were high up near the top of Mount Teide. Better than American style pancakes? Well you decide. Similar recipe. And so many variations. I did them last week with diced strawberries mixed bit of strawberry puree as part of the brunch for the stag party....
.. although when I had suggested them I had forgotten the shape of nana's waffle pan ;)
When I saw this waffle recipe last year I remembered the waffle iron, which had been hanging in her utility room for as long as I could remember. Now in the new house it had been relegated to the garage. And I borrowed/ inherited it.

You go abroad and you see waffles being sold on the street from carts or kiosks, but waffles aren't really so popular here for some reason. Maybe it's time to put that right?

Suprisingly easy to make - just a matter of temperature - too low as I found out and they stay as flat as a crepe. Medium high heat and they cook in 1 - 2 minutes. You turn the pan round half way so they cook on both sides - great piece of equipment.

EDIT 13/8/12

As the blog I originally got this from has now been deleted this is it (luckily I printed it):

1 ¾ cups plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate soda
Pinch salt
2 egg yolks
2 egg whites beaten to stiff peak
1 ¾ cups milk
1 ½ cups melted butter or oil

1 - In a bowl stir together the flour, bicarbonate of soda & salt

2 - Beat together yolks, milk, oil and butter

3 - Stir yolk into flour mix

4 - Beat whites to stiff peaks, then fold into the batter being very careful not to overmix.

5 - Spoon into your waffle iron & cook till golden. You can get get electric waffle makers, but the old fashioned one I have (as seen above) which goes on the gas heat you need to turn over to finish the other side.

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Pearl barley risotto with grilled tiger prawns, peas, basil and mint

There is pearl barley risotto under there - honest!This was for a hen party a few weeks ago. I normally do this with mint pesto, but as they had the summer style beef dish for the main course with watercress coulis I changed it to oyster sauce dressing with the risotto which I normally use for the asparagus and prawn dish (goes well with blackened cod and rice noodles too - that was our lunch today).
And for dessert? Just a little assiette:

Strawberry meringue roulade
Creme brulee
White chocolate and blueberry cheesecake
Chocolate and nut torte
Homemade Baileys ice cream

As there was one diabetic I made an alternative diabetic friendly assiette dessert as seen on a previous post.

Related posts

Link to pearl barley risotto recipe
Other assiette of desserts
Assiette of desserts facebook album
What does assiette mean?

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Assiette of desserts

Three parties last Saturday. After setting up the other two I dashed down the M5 to cook for this one at Rectory Park, Slimbridge. Organised between father and daughter for their wife's/ mother's birthday. What a nice suprise turning up at Rectory Park must be. They had chosen all the things she liked - Gambas pil pil (there's something so right about prawns cooking in garlic), roast loin of pork, and then this selection of favourite desserts.

Lemon tart
Japanese spoon of crème brûlée
Mini sticky toffee pudding (used the canape yorkshire pudding tins for this)
Shotglass of mango sorbet
Vanilla ice cream cone


The mango sorbet was immediately one of my favourite things I had made all year (and that's quite a lot of things). I had been looking for a no egg recipe (by the time they had decided on the flavour it was too late to order pasteurized egg white) and I found this recipe - it turned out great. I used all mango rather than the nectarines and added a couple of glugs of Cointreau too.

For the ice cream cones I used the normal tuile mix and made semi circle tuiles and rolled them up taking them out of the oven one by one. If I do this again I will try making flat bottomed cones. These ones I secured in a piece of melon (scooped with a tablespoon measure and pierced a hole with a small knife for the cone to sit in). I pre-scoooped the ice cream before I served the starter. Then at the last minute before serving I took the plates out to the hall table just outside the dining room and put the ice cream on there so there would be less distance to carry them - the step halfway down the hall always gets you. It helps when you know the house you're working in!


Related posts:

Other assiette desserts we have served
What does 'assiette' mean? Assiette of desserts 12 July 2008

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What can I cook for St. Patrick's Day?

As Joelen reminded me on Bookmarked Recipes, next Tuesday (17th March) is St. Patrick's Day. Ireland's patron saint. The day the world turns black. With a creamy head.

Here's some Irish recipes I've cooked recently:

Irish soda bread
Irish stew with dumplings
Baileys ice cream and Baileys bread and butter pudding


You'll have to wait for the irish potato pancakes - they're coming on Tuesday when I cook them for BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

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Baileys Ice cream

Baileys on ice** is one thing, Iced Baileys is another.
Looking through some new menus ideas at the begining of January I came accross this recipe for Baileys cream pots. It reminded me I had been asked to make Baileys ice cream once by a friend as a birthday present, and how well it went down. That was just too long a time ago - a revival was well overdue.

As with all the ice cream I ever seem to make, it doesn't last long - the next time you go back to it the pot's always empty. I advise a padlock on your freezer if you ever want to get a look in.

Baileys bread and butter pudding as served at the Boathouse near Stratford on Avon

This recipe has been bookmarked for anyone else who wants to try it on the virtual recipe drawer that is Bookmarked Recipes - your one-stop shop for tried and tested recipes from the food blogger community updated every Monday.

If it's an ice cream recipe you want the first place to turn to is 'Ices - The Definitive Guide' by Caroline Liddell & Robin Weir. It's the book I got at the same time as my first ice cream machine when I was 15, and it still holds so many things I want to get round to making.

Like the crème fraîche ice cream recipe I use it's not anglaise based, though you could also try doing that if you want to use less sugar.

Recipe

500ml Whipping or double dream
500ml Milk
200g Caster sugar
125ml Baileys (But I doubled that to get a decent flavour - and it still freezes)

Heat these ingredients in a pan, stirring occasionally till the sugar dissolves. Leave to cool, then cover and chill in fridge till it's fridge cold. Then churn in your ice cream machine for 20 minutes, or still freeze. Transfer to a container and freeze.

Because of the alcohol content it does need freezing for at least 4 hours or overnight before it's firm enough to eat - it won't be firm enough straight from the ice cream machine. They also advise not adding more Baileys than they put, or it won't freeze, but I haven't found this to be the case - my hand always seem to 'slip'. If it comes out very solid allow 5 - 10 minutes out of the freezer for it to soften.

How do you serve ice cream for a large number of guests at the same time? - See an earlier tip here.

Serve on it's own (as above), for Baileys lovers with a extra helping drizzled on top. Or you could accompany it with Baileys bread and butter pudding (or is that the other way round?)

You can also make your own cream based liquor. You won't achieve the same flavour, but it's worth a try every so often......
Edit
How do I make ice cream if I don't have an ice cream machine?
Still freezing. There's directions about 2/3 of the way down here.

Buying an ice cream machine

These are the two I have:

This smaller one I was given as a Christmas present when I was 14 - a great starter model. I still remember the first ice cream I made in it - orange. The difference in flavour was so amazing - just tasted like fresh oranges - not exactly what you can say about supermarket varieties. Rhubarb crumble and custard ice cream was another good one, and pea and mint sorbet was also memorable, as was the cherry and cherry wine ice cream when the local cherry trees were in fruit. Lasted a good 20 years as well (and that's with some serious amount of use!) Great for small scale domestic use.


This larger ice cream machine is the one I have now. Because of the amounts of ice cream I have to make now I needed something bigger and faster. This machine has a built in freezer unit so it freezes the ice cream while it churns. I've found you get a much better result than the old one (smoother and lighter) - it's all to do with the science of ice crystals. You can also do much larger quantities - you just have to wait for a few minutes for it to cool down and then you can go again, whereas the smaller version you have to freeze the bowl overnight before you can use it.
The first thing I made in it was orange sorbet which got great reviews that night we served it!


Related posts

Ice cream tip
Vegan ice cream
Crème fraîche ice cream
Orange sorbet
Pina colada ice cream


** That's Baileys on ice - not to be confused with Dancing on Ice.

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Vegan chocolate tart with vegan ice cream

Vegetarians and vegans I feel always get the short end of the stick in restaurants. What I like about the way I work is I know dietary requirements in advance, so I can plan things so everyone can have the same meal - if that is what they want of course.

When it came to the chocolate tart dessert I served at Littleton Manor on Saturday, it was just a matter of altering the recipes a little. For the pastry base I swapped butter and lard combination I normally use for pure soya margarine. I made 2, just in case of breakages, in round tins, rather than the fluted tins I normally used so they wouldn't get mixed up in transit.

For the chocolate filling I found this recipe (I liked it because unlike the other vegan recipes I looked at it didn't contain tofu). For the ice cream, I looked at so many recipes, until I realised I could adapt my normal crème fraîche ice cream recipe - swapping crème fraîche for soy yogurt, and the normal milk for soy milk. And

the result was pretty impressive.

Related posts:

Chocolate tart

Vegan lemon cheesecake recipe

1001 Kitchen tips #4 - A hole in none - How to get rid of the holes in your pastry cases

Candied zest

1001 Kitchen tips #46 - Which one is no dairy/ vegan/ no nuts etc

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Kitchen tips # 26 - No more screams for ice cream

Question: How do you get ice cream on top of a hot dessert and get it out to the table before it all melts away?

Tarte tatin with madagascan vanilla ice cream

Answer: Place a plate or baking tray in the freezer for at least 10 minutes so it is ice-cold. Scoop or quenelle ice cream into perfect ice cream scoops and place on the ice cold tray - the ice cream should stick to the tray (if you use a tray at room temperature it slides to the other side and melts fast). Fill the tray and place back into the freezer till you are ready to serve.
This can be done hours in advance, or minutes, like I had on this occasion. All you need to do then is go out to the herb garden, pick a hadful of mint sprigs, stick them in the top of the ice cream, then, using a palette knife dipped in hot water, transfer them to your culinary creation.

Any other questions?

Edit 26/9/11

220 Apples for tarte tatin for a wedding & dinner party on the same weekend begining of September

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Knickerbocker glory

What would be your luxury on the desert island? Ice cream? Well make sure you do it properly then. Here three varities of ice cream are joined by toffee sauce, fresh berries (strawberries raspberies and blueberries), mini marshamllows, glace cherries, chopped nuts, white chocolate drops, dark chocolate drops and finished with a cape gooseberry. Now that's fit, not just for a desert island, but a dessert island.

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