SHF #12 Cooking up gingery custard

Foodie Elise is hosting September’s SHF, the sweetest food-event on the blog! She gave us a simple task: Just make your favorite dessert that involves custard. Okidoki! Will do so…but at the same time, cold sweat brakes out. Home made custard tends to split or curdle doesn't it???? In times of panic, turn to über-queen of proper cooking Delia. If there is a foolproof recipe for a thick, glossy custard, she has it!

On Delia’s site you can find a basic recipe for custard. We were thinking about making a classic English trifle: just another excuse to eat all that ripe, juicy red fruit before the season is over. But among the 47 recipes there was one that caught our eye: Ginger ice-cream! As KQ Tai has a new found crush on ginger, there was no doubt about it. Let’s cook up some gingery custard.

(Dear reader, please find the recipe online, we don’t even bother to repeat the exact measurements etc, because, frankly, we’re two lazy b*tches...read on for our experiences though!)


These humble ingredients...transform in a luxurious desert!

Custardy thingies:
Single cream
Egg yolks
Caster sugar
Cornflour

Well, we have to hand it to Delia: her recipe for this custard is everything she promised! Although once again the heat was too high and the curdle process was set in motion (stupidstupidstupid), the cornflour really stabilizes the custard. Just keep on whisking! Once the custard took a plunge in the cold water bath and was stirred around a few times more, we were left with a super smooth and quite a thick custard. Gorgeous! This custard is a doodle to make (we love minimum effort and maximum effect), so it was off to stage two: ginger up that cooled custard and transform it into a lush ice-cream…


The custard takes a plunge

Ice cream-bits ‘n bobs:
Whipped double cream
Stem ginger
Ginger syrup
Vanilla extract
Plastic container

Now, how hard can it be to fold in some chilled whipped cream, chopped up ginger, a few drops vanilla extract (a pod would be even better we feel) and some gingery syrup from the jar? Exactly. No sweat at all. After mixing, just plonk it into a chilled container and pop it into the freezer. And wait. And wait…..and wait.



Fluff the ice-cream after an hour or three and once more after another three hours for maximum velvetiness. Frankly the hardest part was the waiting bit…we wanted to take a spoon and gobble up the whole batch in semi-frozen stage! But if you take the time, sit back and relax you have a whole day of great anticipation…finally put a couple of silky-smooth, pale amber scoops in your prettiest bowl, decorate with a few ginger slices and enjoy. We did!



With gingery greetings, the Kitchen Queens