As you might have guessed by the relative quiet on Triple Motion over the last few months, we’re not always just making ice cream and sorbet. Among our other activities is my new business: Distrify – the revolution in online film distribution. Naturally, film and ice cream go together. So when we’re at film festivals talking about our cool digital film technologies, we can’t help but bring along a White Mountain Freezer.

Last week we were in Cannes for the rather glamourous Festival de Cannes and we teamed up with rose-wine.com to sponsor the Scottish party. Andy came up with the idea of the “Frozen Bellini” – a highly suitable cocktail to enjoy under the hot Mediterranean sun. I know a lot of folk make champagne sorbet, but despite our experiments to try and get bubbles into sorbet, I just couldn’t see the point of freezing champagne and losing its sparkle. So I concocted a simple recipe as follows:

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The search giant attempts to settle a historic argument.

Apparently 119 years ago today someone somewhere invented the Ice Cream Sundae – the classic dish of scoops of ice cream topped with syrup, whipped cream and the ubiquitous cherry. According to Wikipedia, there is some debate about where and when the ice cream sundae was invented, but today Google has featured the ice cream sundae in their logo, giving bias to Ithaca, New York’s claim to having invented the ice cream sundae on Sunday 3 April 1892.

However, I prefer the story from Evanston, Illinois. Not only does it come from the midwest, but it’s a much more fun genesis of this classic dessert. Apparently, in 1890 Evanston passed a blue law banning ice cream sodas on Sundays, so some clever drug stores worked out that they could remove the soda and just sell the ice cream and syrup. “This sodaless soda was the Sunday soda.” These ice cream sundays were a hit despite the irreverent origin, but they eventually changed the name to “Sundae” to placate local leaders who objected to such a sinful dessert being named after the Sabbath.

Just because I’ve been quiet on here recently doesn’t mean I haven’t been cranking. Quite the contrary!

What follows is a surprising treat, part by ingenuity, part by accident.

Jess invited me to make ice cream at her birthday party on a recent weekend and I was of course delighted to take two machines out to Fala and crank. On the bus I met an old man who was very fascinated by the two odd machines I was transporting and his excitement quickly turned to philosophising about the importance of fun.

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In celebration of Cheryl’s 30th birthday, I hauled my trusty half-gallon White Mountain freezer down to Brighton on the overnight MegaBus (10 hours of sheer pain!). Despite my sore back and neck, we were determined to make the effort worthwhile and decided to crank a simple batch of Maple Syrup Ice Cream. Cheryl’s friend had the great suggestion to add Morgan’s Spiced Rum to the mix, and we were off!

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I love green tea ice cream. I think the first time I tasted it was with my brother at a Japanese restaurant in New York more than a decade ago. I still think that some of the best green tea ice cream I’ve had is in New York, at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, a must-stop on any New York visit, even in the ice-cold winter.

A number of years ago we tried making green tea ice cream in the way that seemed logical – brewing gunpowder green tea and adding it to the family recipe. We struggled to get a satisfactory result until one trip to Venice about five years ago. I found a fantastic little gelateria with a Jamaican-themed decor and a very friendly gelato-maker who invited me behind the counter to help him shell pistachios for his delicious nut ice creams. He let me taste a range of unique flavours and then brought out his special green tea batch made for a fancy Japanese restaurant elsewhere in Venice. I was duly impressed and insisted he share the secret.

Needless to say, it’s actually quite simple, but the required green tea can sometimes be hard to track down. You need to use Matcha to make green tea ice cream. Matcha is a finely powdered green tea with a very strong unique flavour. It lasts a long time so it’s worth always having a supply in the fridge. The only place in Edinburgh where I could find it was a specialist chocolatier who agreed to sell me a small bag from their kitchen supply. I’m sure you can get it online easily enough.

It had been a while since I made green tea ice cream so when Ben asked me to make it before he left for the Antarctic (he has moved there for the next 18 months!) I was delighted to get out my Matcha.

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This year for my birthday I received a wonderfully big surprise in a very small package. Turns out that Big D, my dad, and Thibault conspired to find the world’s smallest White Mountain Freezer and sent it for my birthday. After the usual debacle with Parcel Farce, I received the newest edition to our White Mountain arsenal the day after my birthday. The picture below should give it some scale. This is the White Mountain Junior inside a six-quart freezer.

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We are big fans of Chocolate & Chile here and saw the opportunity to take our recipes to a new level for our annual Mexican party at John’s house. Lately I have been championing Chocolate Sorbet as the new pinnacle of chocolatey frozenness. It is the dark chocolate of the ice cream world, with an intensely dark flavour and smooth, creamy texture. On tasting, people are often surprised to learn it’s actually a sorbet.

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Our first ice-cream movie – The Outer Hebridean Ice Cream Adventure is now online.

Read Big D’s story of the trip here.

Roll up! Roll up!

More free ice cream is coming your way. At 5:15pm this Thursday 27 August (in celebration of my mother‘s birthday!) we will be serving up another massive and delicious batch of ice cream at Dee Custance‘s Lemon Custard Comedy Show at the White Horse. Those who missed the last two weeks have no excuse now (did I mention that it’s FREE?). Ben Kempas came all the way from Munich last week to eat the ice cream and take these pictures!

Last week we made a batch of vanilla that was almost not really vanilla. When I was rapidly preparing the mix I forgot the precious drops of vanilla extract and Thibault and I cycled in the rain to the Royal Mile only realising the mistake a few yards from the venue. Thibault quickly embarked on a wild-goose-chase (in the rain!), navigating Edinburgh’s road construction to find the only vanilla within a mile-radius. By the time he got back the ice cream was very near frozen and the comedians were getting anxious.

But we managed to stir in the flavour and delighted the audience with the Triple Motion goodness. It was again, a great success.

So don’t miss it this Thursday!

We are also cranking up some frozen chocolatey goodness for our friends at the Forest Cafe this Saturday.

Come along to Cocopsychosis for a psychedelic dance party with live ice cream, chocolate from The Chocolate Tree, and visuals by Accidental Media (that’s me). Starts at 8pm. details here