Yeah, I know; I should’ve posted this during summer when you were thinking about ice cream. Well here’s the thing: I always think about ice cream. I should fess up right away on this one and say that this isn’t my recipe, but Donald’s. He’s been wanging on about making an ultimate cookie dough ice cream recipe for ages and I’ll admit, I was kinda ‘meh’ about the idea. Then he made it and I had to eat my words which was tough going when my mouth was so rammed full of ice cream.

The real trick here is to infuse the milk with cookies overnight, in the same way as you’d make the cereal milk ice cream everyone went mad for a few years back. The result is that the whole thing tastes like cookies rather than just the chunks. It’s SO RICH. As rich as JK Rowling, or Snoop. He’s prob very rich, and I’m sure he likes ice cream, mainly because of this picture…

Anyway if you’re looking for an ultimate cookie dough ice cream recipe, this is it. I’m sure Snoop would say it’s the shiznit.

Ultimate Cookie Dough Ice Cream Recipe

For the brown butter cookies

255g unsalted butter
250g all-purpose flour
3g bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons good sea salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
140 g brown sugar
140g caster sugar
1 chocolate bar, smashed (I have nailed him down to 60% cocoa solids dark choc, prob standard Green & Blacks size)

Begin by browning the butter. Melt it in a pan with a light coloured base (so you can see the colour of the butter), giving it a swirl every now and then. It will turn a darker golden colour, and eventually a toasty brown. When it turns toasty brown and smells nutty, it is done. Remove from the heat and fridge it for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Mix the flour and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl. Add the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla to an electric mixer and mix. Add the brown sugar and butter, mix again. Add the flour and bicarbonate of soda mixture and mix again for no longer than 10 seconds.

Add the broken up chocolate, mix for another 10 seconds.

Blob cookies onto a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 mins.

For the ice cream

1 litre whole milk
3 egg yolks
250ml double cream

When the cookies are cool, break them up (reserving a few for chunks) and pour over 1 L of whole milk, cover and leave in the fridge overnight.

Strain off the milk, saving 500ml.

Put the milk into a pan and heat until just boiling. Whisk the egg yolks and slowly pour over the milk, whisking constantly. Add to a clean pan and stir until thickened. Set aside in a bowl with clingfilm touching the top until completely cool. Stir in the double cream.

Churn in an ice cream maker, adding the leftover cookies in chunks towards the end of churning.

I am writing this on a coach wedged between a backpack, a suitcase and I’ll admit it, a bag of Dominique Ansel pastries. Have you ever noticed, as you get older, how much more crap you need to carry around with you? It’s not even like I have kids. The basic amount of stuff I need to get by each day is growing and growing until eventually, I’ll be a one-woman band but with notebooks, Apple products and keys hanging off me instead of instruments.

I constantly feel like I’m playing catch up, which is how I found myself stirring the custard for this ice cream at midnight, alone, cats snoring gently in the corner. Maybe everyone else has their ducks in a row, their laundry done and their inbox cleared. If that’s the case, I hate you. You don’t deserve ice cream and you probably wouldn’t eat it anyway since you started eating clean and Instagramming smoothie bowls.

I collapsed into bed, custard in the fridge, only to rise at 6 am to churn it because when I want peach iced tea ice cream I’m darn well gonna have it, even if it does mean losing out on sleep. The ups and downs of working for yourself. There’s no off button, no respite, no chilling in a hammock with one leg hanging off the side, idly swishing your coral painted toes through the sand.

You could eat this ice cream while doing that, though. It would make a great downtime treat, or perhaps more of a reward. A reward for hanging in there, spinning those plates, trying to cling onto your sanity.

Peach Iced Tea Ice Cream

150ml strong English breakfast tea
150ml full-fat milk
150ml single cream
150ml double cream
3 egg yolks
110g caster sugar
500g peaches

Put the tea, single cream and milk into a pan and bring to a simmer, then whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until they thicken and pale. Remove the milk mixture from the heat, then whisk it into the egg mix, adding a little bit at a time.

Put the whole lot back into a clean pan on a gentle heat and add the cream. Stir this in an S motion until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon (around 80C if you have a thermometer). Don’t let it get hotter because the eggs will start to cook. Set it aside to cool with a dampened circle of greaseproof paper on the top, to stop a skin forming. Chill this in the fridge until completely cold, or leave overnight.

Peel the peaches and remove the stones then chop the flesh roughly and pulse in a blender until roughly pureed.

Churn in an ice cream maker, adding the peach puree towards the end of churning.

Oddly, this was the first time I’d ever made honeycomb. That’s some crazy right there. In case you’ve never made it, what happens is that you melt butter, sugar and golden syrup in a pan then bubble it furiously, before chucking in some bicarbonate of soda, which makes it go BATSHIT. It expands massively, frothing up into a giant golden Crunchie. Loads of fun.

Anyway it’s lush crumbled into this ice cream, with cherries and bourbon. Fruit, booze and honeycomb. Yes please.

Cherry, Bourbon and Honeycomb Ice Cream Recipe

250g cherries, pitted
150ml bourbon
225g caster sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
500ml double cream
500ml whole milk
6 large egg yolks

Honeycomb (recipes all over the internet)

In a saucepan, heat the cherries with the bourbon, 50 ml water and the 2 tablespoons sugar. Simmer until reduced by about a third and the cherries are coated in a syrupy liquid. Set aside and allow to cool.

Scald the milk and cream (this means heating it until almost but not boiling, basically when bubbles start to appear around the edge, you’re done). Whisk the egg yolks and 225g sugar together until they turn pale and start to thicken. Continue whisking, and add about 1/3 of the hot milk and cream mixture to the egg mix, then when it is incorporated, add the remaining mixture (again whisking all the time).

Pour the lot into a clean, heavy based pan and cook over a low-medium heat, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon. You can also test if it’s ready by drawing a line down the custard on the back of the spoon with your finger. If the line stays, it’s ready. A thermometer makes this much easier though. At 80 C it should be about right.

Put the custard aside in a bowl and add the cherries and most of the juice, reserving a little to drizzle over before serving. Cover by placing a layer of cling film or greaseproof paper directly on top of the custard, to stop a skin forming. Leave to cool completely.

To make the honeycomb, er, find a recipe on the internet like I did. They’re basically all the same. Once cool, break into pieces.

When the custard is well chilled, churn in an ice cream maker, stirring in some honeycomb pieces right at the end. Freeze for an hour or two before serving.

The old school ice cream flavours are the best. Mint choc chip, raspberry ripple, tutti frutti. I have a particularly soft spot for rum and raisin though, probably because it contains BOOZE. Flavours like R & R are rarely seen in the shops nowadays, bullied off the shelves by the likes of that total whorebag ‘chocolate fudge brownie’ and tacky slapper ‘cherry garcia’.

I had to make some proper rum and raisin at home and I had to make it gooood. I started by looking into rum. Spiced rum. I’ve never really been much of a rum drinker to be honest so I asked around and Kraken seemed popular with those in the know. The bottle is also pretty damn cool…

 

So it tastes like er, spiced rum; cloves, allspice, bit of cinnamon. It also has quite a strong caramel flavour which I find rather unpleasant to drink but which works well in ice cream. I thought I’d added too much in the first batch but actually the flavour rounded out after a couple of days and I decided to stick with it. I wanted as much rum in the mix as possible, basically. What I did do the first time however was add too many raisins. I told my friend about this and he just tutted loudly and said ‘huh, classic mistake’ in a disdainful manner. He was right of course, which is what made it so annoying.

Anyway, I made another batch and it kicked ass so, HA. What really makes this ice cream the shiz however is the banana bread chunks. I was gifted a piece of banana bread by my mates who were basically trying to offload all the food in their cupboard before going on holiday. On a whim I broke it up, chucked it in the ice cream maker and churned it very briefly in the hope it would somewhat resemble cookie dough in texture, rather than disintegrate into a thousand bits of grit. As it turned out my recklessness (I really know how to live) was rewarded with lovely gooey squidgy pieces.

I’ve been knocking back bowls of this but I’ve still got loads left and I’m wondering what to do with it. Ice cream sandwiches with wafers are definitely on the cards and I spent a good half an hour on the 185 to Catford contemplating the idea of wrapping banana bread around the outside to make a kind of pimped arctic roll. I want to spend my days playing around with custard, booze and fruit, basically. I think that’s an entirely reasonable use of my time.

Rum and Raisin Ice Cream with Banana Bread Chunks

150ml Kraken spiced black rum
75g raisins
8 egg yolks (yep)
200g caster sugar
400ml full fat milk
400ml double cream
1 piece orange peel
150g banana bread
A pinch of salt

Put the raisins in a small pan with the rum and warm them through gently. Set them aside in a bowl to let them get on with plumping up.

Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar. In a saucepan bring the milk, salt and orange peel almost to the boil. Don’t let it actually boil. Pour this on to the egg yolks, whisking really well at the same time.

Return this mixture to the heat. Add the cream, rum and the raisins. Cook this over a low heat, stirring gently and scraping the bottom of the pan. Keep the heat low and remain patient until the custard begins to thicken. It is ready when the custard coats the back of a spoon. This happens at 80C. With hindsight, it might be easier to separate the rum and raisins and add the raisins towards the end of churning, particularly if you are not familiar with making custard as the raisins make it harder to judge when it is starting to thicken.

Set the custard aside in a bowl and cover it to stop a skin forming. Let this cool completely then ideally refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. Discard the orange zest.

Churn in an ice cream maker. Towards the end of churning, add the banana bread chunks, mix very briefly, then freeze.

I say this every year so I may as well say it again: it’s never too cold for ice cream. If you disagree with that statement, may I suggest that you turn up your central heating.

I’m always on the look out for new flavours and the inspiration for this one came from a bag of mini Daim that I picked up for my colleagues at Gothenburg airport. I’d forgotten how good they are and as always when I find myself enjoying something sweet, I immediately thought, ‘this could be good mixed into a shitload of frozen custard’.

It was very good indeed; a smooth ice cream with lots of crunchy, burnt-butter-caramel and chocolate pieces. It’s basically a posh McFlurry. Phwoar.

Daim Bar Ice Cream

600ml single cream
6 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
4 x full size Daim Bars

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy (this is easiest in an electric mixer). Heat the cream until almost boiling (watch for little bubbles forming around the sides) then pour the cream over the egg mixture in a thin, steady stream, whisking all the time.

Pour the custard into a clean saucepan and heat gently, stirring constantly until it thickens slightly to coat the back of a wooden spoon. It is important to do this gently – if you overheat it, the eggs will start to cook and you’ll get little blobs of egg floating about in the mixture. Heat to 80C.

Decant into a bowl and cover with a piece of greaseproof paper, pushing the paper right down to cover the surface of the custard (this it to stop it forming a skin). When cool, chill for half an hour in the fridge.

Pour into an ice cream maker and churn. While this is happening, take a rolling pin and bash the (unopened) Daim Bars into pieces. Set some pieces aside for serving and add the rest to the ice cream towards the end of churning.

Brown bread ice cream might sound weird but it’s actually one of the best flavours ever invented. Fact. Crumbs are caramelised in the oven with brown sugar and butter until gooey malt; the edges crisp and the centre remains soft so the final effect is like Ben and Jerry’s cookies n cream with chewy, dough-like pieces flecked throughout.

I got thinking along the lines of toast and jam; lots of nutty caramel from the crumbs and a ripple of sweet (high-fruit) raspberry jam running through. This is about as old English as it gets: a Victorian recipe with a ripple in it.

Brown bread ice cream with a raspberry jam ripple

(I used Keiko’s recipe as a starting point)

4 medium egg yolks
45g caster sugar
1/2 tablespoon vanilla paste (I used Nielsen-Massey vanilla paste from a jar but you can use half a vanilla pod or a little vanilla extract)
80g crust-less wholemeal bread (make sure it doesn’t have any seeds)
1 teaspoon cornflour
250ml semi-skimmed milk (use whole if you want to but I don’t think it necessary for this recipe)
40g butter
50g light brown sugar
250ml double cream
High-fruit raspberry jam (not too much sugar basically), for rippling

Preheat the oven to 180C

Whiz up the bread to make crumbs. Melt the butter then mix it with the crumbs and light brown sugar. Spread this mixture out on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, until the crumbs are crisp. They may remain a bit soft and chewy in the middle but this is a good thing. Allow them to cool completely then break them up into crumbs again; make sure to leave some big bits.

Pour the milk into a heavy-based saucepan, add the vanilla paste and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and leave for 15 minutes to infuse.

In an electric mixer or in a large bowl with a hand whisk, beat the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour until thick and pale. Pour over the hot milk very slowly, whisking constantly. Return the mixture to the pan and cook it over a very gentle heat, stirring all the time. After a while the custard will begin to thicken slightly; when it coats the back of a spoon it is ready. That’s at 80C if you have a thermometer. Cover with a cartouche of greaseproof paper and leave to cool.

Stir the cream into the custard, tip into an ice cream machine and churn until thick. Stir the crumbs into the mixture, churn for 5-10 minutes until ready to serve. If you let your ice cream get too thick before you’ve added the crumbs, just stir them in by hand. Tip your ice cream into a freezer proof tub. If your ice cream is rather soft at this point, stick it in the freezer for an hour before adding your ripple. To add the ripple, take a tablespoonful or so of the jam and put in a bowl, mix it very well with a spoon to loosen it up. Put dollops of the jam on top of the ice cream and use a skewer to create a ripple effect.

Rhubarb? Check. Little doughy crumble pieces? Check. Complete absence of faffy custard base? Checkycheck check. It’s basically perfect. Not that I’m going to take the credit of course, that must go to Saint Delia. Her recipes always work.

You roast your barb with sugar (I added a splash of rosewater – orange blossom water would also be nice) then purée and mix with cream before churning, adding the crumble pieces at the last minute. The finished ice cream has an aerated cloud-like texture and oh my goodness is it ever creamy and tart and spun through with squidgy cookie-dough-like pieces.

Next time, I’ll use a bit less sugar, to let just a smidge more of the barb’s characteristic tartness to come through and steer it in a slightly more grown up direction. Not too grown up though. I mean, it’s ice cream after all and for me, it’s all about the memories. Hunched up in a secret corner somewhere, knees up to my chest, bowl balanced on top, performing the same strange ritual of mashing and moulding and eating that I always, always did as a child. I marvelled at its magical soothing properties; the only thing I could ever eat when ill (or pretending to be ill). It was about the excitement of learning every new flavour and the painful learning curve that is realising how to avoid a brainfreeze. Now it’s more about sensitive teeth and weight gain. It’s definitely worth that extra run every week though, and I know I’ll still be hoovering it up when I’ve no longer got any of my own teeth left. Just think – if I leave out the crumble bits, I won’t even need them.

Rhubarb Crumble Ice Cream by Delia Smith

(original recipe here)

For the ice cream:

1 lb (450 g) trimmed rhubarb
8 oz (225 g) sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
15 fl oz (425 ml) whipping cream
A splash of rosewater or orange blossom water (optional)

For the crumble:

3 oz (75 g) plain white flour
2 oz (50 g) butter
2 oz (50 g) light brown muscovado sugar
½ level teaspoon ground ginger

Combine all the crumble ingredients in a bowl and use your hands to rub the butter into the flour as if you were making pastry. You want small, pea sized pieces of dough. Sprinkle these evenly into a baking dish and put to one side.

Cut the barb into 1cm lengths and put in a shallow baking dish, then sprinkle over the lemon juice and sugar mixing well. I added a splash of the rosewater at this point. Put the dish on a low shelf in the preheated oven and the crumble mix on the top. The crumble needs to be baked for 10 minutes then removed and left to cool. The barb may take another 15-20 although I found this slightly too long so remember to check it. When it has cooled slightly, blend it to a purée.

Break up the crumble into pea sized lumps again.

Stir the cream into the purée then churn in an ice cream maker until it has the texture of softly whipped cream, then scrape it into a plastic tub (with a lid) and stir in the crumble pieces quickly, before freezing.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, do as Delia says and “freeze the cream and rhubarb mixture (without the crumble) in the box for 3-4 hours, then whisk and return to the freezer. Re-freeze for a further 2 hours, then whisk again and stir in the crumble before the final freezing. If frozen solid, the ice cream will need to be transferred to the main body of the fridge for about 25 minutes before serving to allow it to become soft enough to scoop.”