Leo has been pressuring me into making mango ice cream for a long time. Strange that I should resist such a delicious potential, but the truth is that ripe and tasty mangoes are incredibly difficult to find, especially way up here in Scotland. We have made mango ice cream a few times, even combining it with ginger (and recently strawberries), but like the mango’s own elusive flavour, the perfect batch is always slipping away from our reach.

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The amazing and delightful french rapper OneSP recently took off for a long trip to South America. Before leaving, we got together for a farewell ice cream party.

I brought strawberries and 1SP had a couple very ripe Pakistani mangoes. When our powers combine we make some crazy things, and this ice cream party is no exception.

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This is one of my favourite recipes and I only make it during the strawberry season, which has recently begun in Scotland. Scottish strawberries are some of the best in the world and when they’re at their best they deserve to be turned into this delectable dessert.

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While Thibault is impressing us with his sorbet and ice cream talents, we mustn’t forget his musical skills. Here’s a video clip from our Outer Hebridean Ice Cream Adventure. Check him out:

Watch it in HD or on YouTube.

P.S. We have almost finished the full story of the Outer Hebridean Ice Cream Adventure. Stay tuned!

Sorry folks, don’t let the title fool you. We haven’t made Biscuits and Gravy Ice Cream yet (though now it’s sounding like a challenge…). Really this post is to educate Europeans about one of America’s great breakfasts. Due to some accidental oversight in our effort to replace British English with American English, people here still think of “cookies” when I say “biscuits” and they really have no idea what sausage gravy is like either. Biscuits ‘n’ Gravy is a classic of the American diner and something every grandmother does well.

A quick back-story: For the past five weeks or so, Thibault and I have had pancakes for breakfast every day. (Actually we missed two days, but made up for them by doubling the quantity the following days…) We decided daily pancakes is a the best way to perfect the technique. It’s also a really easy and fast way to have a delicious and healthy breakfast each day. In less than 10 minutes you can have a big plate full of pancakes with maple syrup to wolf down. And they go so well with ice cream!

Anyway, I digress. Pancakes are best when made with buttermilk, as are biscuits. And since we’ve had pancakes every day for the past five weeks, the house is always well-stocked with fresh and tangy buttermilk from Longley Farm. Today we had some nice lamb sausages from the Farmers’ Market in the fridge and decided to buck the trend and make Biscuits ‘n’ Gravy instead of pancakes.

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Here’s the last of the four flavours we made on Blackford Hill recently.

This Raspberry Sorbet was absolutely delicious - probably one of the best sorbets I’ve ever made!

Thibault and Celine hoped to make a Peach and Basil Sorbet, but had no luck at finding ripe peaches. Instead they bought a few punnets of raspberries from Europe (we’re still waiting for the Scottish raspberry season…).

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For our Blackford Hill ice cream party we decided to make a mint ice cream to go with the chocolate gelato (or was it chocolate to go with the mint?). Anyway, we had never made it before, but thought it was worth a try.

Basically, all we did was stuff a bunch of mint leaves in a litre of milk the day before making the ice cream. I checked the milk occasionally to make sure the flavour was right. Eventually I decided I better make up the mix to accurately test the mintyness.

So I made a fairly standard batch and left the mint in another hour or so, before I was happy with the flavour. Probably in all it infused for 20 hours in the fridge.

After the usual cranking, we had a fantastically delicious (non-green) mint ice cream. Easy! It went really well with the chocolate gelato, but if you want to make the classic mint-chocolate chip ice cream, then just stir some chocolate chips into the ice cream just after you’re finished cranking. When you freeze chocolate the flavour is hard to enjoy, so you don’t want the chips in for the whole freezing process.

See below for the rest of the photos by Abigail Amalton and Rahul Joshi

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For those of you who missed last Saturday’s “Ultimate Ice Cream Social on top of Blackford Hill”, we understand… It was raining… a lot. But it was still amazing fun.

As great as this picture is, it doesn’t do the event total justice (see more photos here). We had four White Mountains cranking simultaneously, churning out a full range of flavours: chocolate gelato, mint ice cream, raspberry sorbet, and a big 6-quart batch of classic vanilla ice cream.

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This one is not for the faint-hearted. Literally. This is indeed the richest ice cream we have ever made.

Thibault again deserves the credit for the idea, suggesting both toffee and banana for an impulsive ice cream last Sunday in Newcastle.

Now, I know your mouth is watering for the full account of our Hebridean ice cream adventures, but it’s going to take us a bit longer to compile all the recipes, pictures and video. In the meantime, eat your heart out with one of the most mind-blowingly delicious ice cream recipes yet.

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