Gooseberry and Elderflower Ice Cream

"Gooseberry and Elderflower may be a very British thing, but it’s such a fabulous combination of flavours that it deserves to be known wider. The tart flavour of gooseberries, tempered by Elderflower Cordial, makes this dessert a wonderful contrast to rich main courses and a fantastic way to finish off a special meal. By way of example , I used frozen gooseberries (picked ourselves) to make this for Christmas day 2005; the flavours evoked welcome memories of summer sun. This recipe comes from “Leith’s Vegetarian Bible”, cooking time is freezing time."
 
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Ready In:
8hrs 25mins
Ingredients:
5
Serves:
4-6
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ingredients

  • 450 g gooseberries (fresh or frozen)
  • 2 tablespoons water
  • 110 g caster sugar (superfine sugar)
  • 70 ml elderflower cordial
  • 290 ml double cream (heavy cream)
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directions

  • Top and tail the gooseberries, wash them and put them in a saucepan with the water and sugar; cover and bring slowly to the boil, stirring occasionally to a pulp.
  • Keeping the heat low, simmer the gooseberry pulp, uncovered, for 5 minutes; allow to cool slightly then put in a blender and process until smooth; sieve to make a smooth puree and set aside to cool.
  • When the puree is cold, add the elderflower cordial and cream; mix well and check the sweetness, adding a bit more sugar if required; pour into a plastic container and freeze for at least 8 hours or overnight.
  • NOTE: allow the ice cream to soften for 10 minutes before serving.
  • The original recipe instructs you to process or whisk the ice cream when partially frozen, re freeze then repeat in order to break down any ice crystals that may form; I must confess that whenever I see this instruction I always ignore it and have never had a problem with grainy ice cream: I’ll leave the choice up to you, but of course it will increase the preparation involved.

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Reviews

  1. Wow - how delicious!<br/>I made this for my dad, last night, and used home-grown gooseberries, and homemade elderflower cordial.<br/>Highly recommend it!!!<br/><br/>www.tillypollard.com - freelance graphic designer
     
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

I live with my husband and 2 cats in Worcester Park; a quiet typical 1930s suburb (which no one has ever heard of!) about 12 miles South West of London. I'm a fair weather gardener and as my husband is a vegetarian I grow a few easy vegetables, such as tomatoes and peppers, mainly in containers. My husband loves growing flowers, the brighter the better, and we have a pretty garden as a result. Our cats, Araminta and Purrl, like it too! I do a lot of cooking and try to keep our diet as healthy and varied as possible. Although I work full time, I use very little in the way of pre-prepared foods. This is partly because of the limited choice of vegetarian meals, which I think are overpriced anyway; but mainly because I like to know what goes in my food! I love using the Internet for all the great ideas it gives me. Last year I participated in the Zaar World Tour (under my previous public name Caroline Blakey), which was great. Mr B and I tried lots of new foods and discovered new favourite meals. Researching recipes for the Tour was really interesting, however as I didn't have time to try them all, some were posted untested. I'm still working my way very slowly through them. To make matters worse I keep seeing other recipes I want to save and have also participated in Zaar world Tour II. So many recipes, so little time to make them! <img src="http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b112/kzbhansen/Banners/Animation3.gif"> My 'rules' for posting recipes are a) if I wouldn't make a particular recipe, I won't post it and b) if my husband wouldn't eat it, I won't post it. This means that all my recipes are vegetarian friendly. As you will see from the number of recipes saved in my cookbooks, I particularly enjoy making jams and chutneys; I'd say it was one of my favourite hobbies. We always have a good supply of home preserves; my friends and work colleagues are well supplied too. If we won the lottery (say £5m, as a good number) we'd like to give up work, move to the country and buy a place with a bit of land. In my dreams this would be a manor house or old vicarage, with a walled garden, an orchard where I could keep hens, a vegetable garden, etc, etc, etc! In my more realistic moments (the £1m win perhaps) I would like to run a B&B, perhaps offering Vegetarian taster weekends. Luckily it costs nothing to dream.......I’d also love more time to read, do embroidery, learn a language, see more of the countryside; and of course play on Zaar.
 
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