The BFD Food Column: Homemade Ice Cream

Once upon a time upon a time, Mums used to make everything. Thinking back, one has clear memories of homemade bread, cakes, jams, preserves, muesli, ice blocks and even delish homemade cooked ice cream. These days one buys it all but rarely feasts on anything other than tasteless empty pleasures.

Today’s homes seem bereft of the hustle-bustle, warmth, aromas and mess that accompanied the ‘real’ food cottage industry. Those memories, while distant, conjure up tastes and aromas that to this day can even be remembered by the octogenarians amongst us. Who today remembers a cardboard taste and a good look beyond a tweet or selfie stored somewhere in the ethernet?

Well my Mum Hinda Goldwater nee Shenken, may her memory be blessed, used to make the best homemade everything (of course we didn’t appreciate it at the time) including homemade cooked ice cream. 

Homemade ice cream was always a much-anticipated summer treat, much richer than the NZ shop-bought ‘Tip Top’ fare and because there was plenty, you could always sneak seconds.

I was re-introduced to handmade ice cream when operating my first restaurant back in the nineties: ‘Al Dente’, Jerusalem, Israel. Looking for another point of difference from my competitors my wife Merav and I flew for a weekend to Rome and picked up a decent gelato machine, allowing us to offer our guests real handmade sorbet and ice cream. The gelato machine wasn’t really necessary for the cooked ice cream, as being a frozen thick egg custard with flavour it retains its creaminess and airiness anyway without the need of an ice cream maker.

The history of ice cream isn’t all that riveting, mostly flavouring added to ice and snow brought down from the mountain peaks in more ancient times. In short, ice cream as we know it today is a product of modern technologies that started developing with the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century. More recently ice cream has been taken into the arena of international politics by Ben & Jerry’s who have decided to make it a controversial political football. No scoop here, leave it to the ballers and the cones I say.

One of my favourites is caramel ice cream. The recipe I use is from the legendary Rogers and Gray and their exceptional 1990s cookbook Italian Country Cook Book.

Caramel Ice Cream

This amount makes about three litres of ice cream. If that’s too much, halve the amounts given.

Ingredients:

For ice cream

• Cream x 1750 ml
• Milk x 500 ml
• Vanilla essence (real) x 4 caps (beans are scarce) 
• Egg yolk x 15
• Sugar x 350 gram

For caramel

• Sugar x 270 gram
• Water x 125 ml

Method:

In a large heavy-based pot combine cream, milk and vanilla, heat to just before boiling and remove from flame. In a bowl beat egg yolks and sugar with a whisk for several minutes until pale in colour. Add a little of the hot cream/milk mixture to the eggs and combine quickly, return to the pot using a silicone/rubber spatula and on a low light gently heat and stir until the mixture reaches no more than 74 °C, or if you don’t have a thermometer, until it thickens into a semi custard and coats the spoon.

While the pot of cream, sugar and eggs is thickening, in a heavy-bottomed pan add sugar and water and heat until black and smoking. The optimum timing is that both the pot and the caramel are ready at the same time. Once the caramel is black and smoking pour into the hot cream/egg mixture and mix thoroughly, set aside to cool in freezable containers and then put in the freezer for twenty-four hours. If you have an ice cream machine, “Bellissimo”, mix until ready.

Next week heading back to the Jewish Barrios in the Maghreb, where hot peppers and fish try to impress.

Sibatto Shalom, Filipino for early release or vamonos from work on Friday. Its a pun on Shabbat Shalom.

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