I love ice cream, being brought up in Musselburgh the home of the famous Luca’s Ice-cream Parlour rather lends itself to a tendency to liking the sweet creamy confection. Ice-cream to me is synonymous with summer, holidays, beaches, smiles, sticky faces and fingers and childhood.
Ice-cream makes me smile.
Now when it comes to flavours in ice-cream I was brought up on the standard vanilla, strawberry or chocolate. I was a vanilla girl.
Move on a good few years when I worked in Sicily and there was suddenly a myriad of all natural flavours to choose from. I went for wild strawberry.
- 500g/1lb 2oz cucumber
- 200ml/7fl oz Honey
- 200ml double cream (heavy cream)
- 200ml Greek yogurt
- 2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
- Pinch of salt
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Pour the cream into a pan and bring to the boil, lower heat and simmer. Add the yogurt, honey and chopped mint and still until the honey has completely dissolved. Set aside to cool completely.
- Peel half of the cucumber as you only want some of the green skin not all of it. Remove the seeds and core.
- Chop the remaining flesh and blitz in food processor. Pour in the creamy mixture and blitz again adding the lemon juice and the salt.
- Press the mixture through a wire sieve to get the smoothest texture and chill thoroughly before churning in an ice-cream maker.
- Spoon into a carton and freeze for 2 hours to firm
Nowadays Ice-cream is awash with flavours and I have to admit that my inner alchemist rather has a field day when I have any combination of fresh cream, fruits, herbs or veggies to choose from. What could be thrown together to provide a spoon able feast?
I will admit to making a few cock-ups in my pursuit of ice-cream flavourdom. My tomato and balsamic has yet to delight, but I’m working on it……
One that I have really enjoyed this summer has been my Cucumber and Mint Ice-cream which blends cucumber, fresh mint, honey and Greek yogurt. To me this one is a real winner. A grown up treat. A sweet version of that favourite Greek dip Tsatsiki. It instantly transports me to the gorgeous Greek islands, sunshine and lazy days with friends.
Whether you are a Greekophile or not do try this fun cucumber and mint ice-cream recipe, it is cooling, refreshing and just the ticket on a warm sunny day.
Karon x
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