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I spent years dropping huge hints about wanting an ice-cream machine. Yet since the year TW got me one for my birthday, I have spent two months feeling extremely guilty that I only made ice-cream twice. In fact TW, who does not have the same no-sugar restrictions as myself, made ice-cream at least four times. Then he ate it all by himself.

In Mona’s Meals: The Foodbook (published by Merlin), there is a recipe for Orange and Lavender Ice-Cream. It’s great and it’s quite low-carb. But the instances where we have oranges in this house are truly rare, so I wanted a bog-standard, simplicity-is-best vanilla ice-cream recipe.

I hunted high and low in every single cookbook and magazine I had, and could not find one recipe that did not include making a custard or high-falutin kinds of sugars like Locatelli uses. This is the dilemma with summer: it’s hot, so you want cold stuff, but ice-cream requires slaving over a hot cooker and I don’t really want to do that.

Finally, I seem to have cracked the code. By turning the method ‘round, and cooking the cream, but not the yolks, I cut down on the ‘making’ time and avoided the risk of my custard curdling. The result is a smooth, wonderful base ice-cream which can then be tweaked with fruit or chocolate chips.

Pity I can’t eat it right this second. I would if I could.

Ingredients

2 large eggs 5 large egg yolks 720ml of a mixture Benna fresh cream (a large pack) and Scottish Pride whipping cream 1 vanilla pod, split lengthways [scoop out some of the seeds and mix them into the cream] 8 tablespoons Tagatose A large pinch of sea salt

Method

Place the eggs and egg yolks in a Kenwood mixer and get the whisk attachment going on a slow speed.

Meanwhile, place the creams, vanilla pod and sweetener in a large pot and bring everything to a rapid boil. Mix continuously while it’s boiling, then switch off.

Start pouring the boiled cream extremely slowly (as if you were making mayonnaise) into the whisking eggs, and increase the speed to around medium. Continue dribbling in: this is the most boring bit, so bear with me.

Do this until it has all gone in and is mixed.

Ready!

I couldn’t believe it either, but that’s the way it works. You should now have a super aerated cream with absolutely no lumps anywhere.

Pour it into a bowl and cool it in the fridge. If you place it while still hot in the freezer, you will ruin everything.

When it is completely cool, pop it into an ice-cream machine and churn for 30 minutes.

If you don’t have a machine, place it into a large plastic bowl and take it out of the freezer to break down the ice-crystals (by mixing) periodically.

VARIATIONS:

Chocolate Chip

TW doesn’t like a plain vanilla, so when the mix is completely cool, I sometimes mix in a very dark chocolate (which I have smashed into small chips), and then mix in with the mixture after cooling. If you want, you can do it while the mixture is hot, but then it will turn the whole ice cream into a pale beige.

If you want to keep this low-carb, ensure that the chocolate has at least 70% cocoa solids and does not have more than 30g of carbs per 100 of product. 50g is enough for this quantity of recipe.

Berry

Alternatively, you can also mix in a handful of frozen berries when the mixture has cooled and before you place into the freezer. Make sure they are frozen otherwise, you will end up with a sludge, which doesn’t look so good. The flavour, though, is the same.