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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To accompany the Marzipan Ice Cream, I thought we should publish the best pancake recipe ever! I’m not talking crêpes. These are big, fluffy American-style pancakes. My mom gave me this recipe in her wonderful little book titled “Mother’s Recipes for Peter”. I’m not sure where she got it, but it is worth repeating here. It works best with good quality buttermilk.

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In less than seven hours we depart for our biggest ice cream adventure yet! Thibault and Celine and I will be taking the White Mountain to Iona tomorrow. We’ll make a nice batch of coconut and chocolate there for Celine’s birthday.

Then on Saturday Dr. Big D will join us in Oban to catch the ferry to Barra and we’ll cycle the length of the Outer Hebrides, making ice cream along the way! Stay tuned for all the excitement…

UPDATE: The full story is now online.

Though our chocolate gelato recipe produces an incredible result, it’s an awful lot of work and takes a long time to prepare and chill before you can freeze it. I eventually decided that there is no reason why the Russell Recipe should not produce a quality chocolate ice cream.

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When I was a kid I did not like chocolate ice cream. Strange as it seems now, I didn’t really have any interest in the stuff. If I was given a serving of Neapolitan ice cream I would devour the pink and white stripes as quickly as possible to avoid accidentally eating any meltings from the brown stripe. Don’t get me wrong, I always loved chocolate, especially dark chocolate. I didn’t even understand why I didn’t like chocolate ice cream.

And then several years ago I went to Italy. Italians don’t mess around with ice cream. True Italian gelato can be found in few places in the world, but in Italy there seems to be a law requiring at least one quality gelateria in every square mile. Naturally, I did my best to try them all. But after 4 or more triple-scoop cones per day for a couple weeks, I admitted defeat. It would take me several lifetimes to sample every flavour in every gelateria. But along the way, I came across something very exciting: delicious chocolate gelato!

I asked Aunt Nancy if she knew how to make chocolate ice cream, but she said Mike and Sam had tried to use chocolate milk in the Russell recipe and had unsatisfying results. This caused me to question my firm lifelong belief that the Russell Recipe never fails. (Note: Lately I have reconfirmed this undeniable truth by making a successful chocolate and coconut ice cream with the Russell Recipe…)

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