I love ice-cream, very much. However, the problem with living in England is that our range of ice-cream flavours is not that exciting. Yes, Cornish clotted cream ice-cream is delicious and there are some really delicious ice-creams out there (notably a delicious blackcurrant ice cream that is sold at National Trust properties), but on the whole it’s pretty pedestrian. Many of my holiday memories revolve around ice cream – a dreamy dark chocolate gelato in Dubrovnik, a celery flavoured ice cream in Rome and my first taste of Italy – a canteloupe melon gelato.
After our last holiday to Rome, and after many occasions of me mentioning how much I wished we could have the delicious flavours we sampled at home, I was bought an ice cream maker as a housewarming present. Now the first try of this was rather disappointing – the included recipes were rather lacking in flavour. However, I then bought possibly one of my favourite cook books, David Leibovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. This book is what ice-cream needed; the flavours in this book literally make my head spin with the possibilities.
This ice cream was chosen to go with the Prinsesstarta made earlier in the year. Whilst not traditional to serve chocolate ice cream with it, the addition of raspberries to the ice cream gives a tart edge which contrasts well with the sweetness of the creamy cake. However, it is also delicious with fruit, cakes, scraped from the bowl… whatever floats your boat!
[Note, home-churned ice cream will tend to be less set than the shop bought variety, and then set about a million times harder when frozen - remove it 10 minutes before serving which should make it easier to shovel out!
Chocolate and Raspberry Ice Cream
Ingredients:
- 360ml double cream
- 120g caster sugar
- 40g cocoa powder, the best quality you can get.
- 240g raspberries.
Instructions:
Place the cream, cocoa powder and sugar in a large saucepan and heat until it come to the boil, whisking regularly (it will start foaming up, this is normal). Remove from the heat and add the raspberries. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pass the mixture through a sieve to remove the seeds and refrigerate until chilled. Churn in your ice cream maker according to the instructions.
