Paw-paw/Papaya icecream in the Cederberg, South Africa

Back in March I took a trip out to South Africa to visit my sister, and whilst there we cooked up this little adventure.  Soon after arriving we had some beautifully ripe paw-paw for breakfast and decided to see if they’d make good icecream. To add a bit more interest we decided to try making it in the Cederberg national park – a spectacular semi-desert 300 km north of Cape Town.

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Rhubarb Ice-cream

Back to business!

It’s been a while since my last post, but the ice-cream frenzy is still on!

Last weekend, my friend Bastien had a few visitors : his brother and his girlfriend, who live in Youngstown, Ohio.  Bastien’s sister and a friend of hers also joined this happy family gathering.

Knowing that Bastien lives about twenty meters far from us, a sunny sunday afternoon was a perfect occasion for a casual, laid-back lunch, involving, of course, ice cream.

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Maple Syrup and Rum Ice Cream

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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Whisky and honey ice-cream – Antarctic style

SANAE IV research station is located on a small nunatak called Vesleskarvet, in Western Dronning Maud Land. Although the building its self is rather impressive, it is but a tiny spec on the immense landscape of the Antarctic.

SANAE

It is this landscape that I have been privileged enough to be working in for the last few months and where I go, my trusty triple motion crank follows.

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Calisson ice-cream for New Year’s Eve

Calisson ice-cream had been on our mind for a while now, since we got offered a tiny ice-cream recipes book with this one featuring.

Calisson is a small delicacy from the south of France. It is aesthetically perfect, a smooth and silky pebble with sharp angles making it as streamlined as an Airstream van. I’ve always been fond of this almondy paste with a sugar icing… although I have to say the taste is not that refined. But calissons benefit from their everlasting reputation of luxury delicacy.

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Making Ice Cream in the Land of Ice

Close your eyes and think about Antarctica. You will probably think of ice-bergs, pack ice, icy waste lands…generally a whole lot of icy thoughts. This is for good reason as 90% of the world’s ice is found on the continent.

Antarctica

As part of my work a researcher at the University of Stellenbosch, I am privileged enough to visit this icy land periodically to undertake biological surveys. When I got word that I would be heading South this year, naturally, the first thing I packed to take with me to this land of ice was my trusty ice-cream maker.

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Apple & Cinamon Ice Cream on-sea

Although I have only been a bonefide cranker for a few months, I have followed the antics of the Triple motion crew for several years now. Each new entry seems to be an exploration of the wonderful world if iced deserts, tantalizing the taste buds and exciting the soul. The bank of recipes which has been accumulated is impressive and a little daunting!

One hot evening in South Africa I got that ice-cream feeling and decided that rather than try and come up with some cutting edge recipe, I would expand the boundaries of ice cream making in other ways. Instead of  taste adventures, I thought I would build on the trend set by the Ice Cream in the Clouds adventure and take my churn to places that no churn has been before. With this lofty goal in mind I set off to…the beach.

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Green Tea Ice Cream for Ben’s leaving party

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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Coconut, cardamom and banana ice-cream in the clouds

Once upon a time, some Triple Motion crankers had a crazy idea…the conversation went something like this:

Jen:      ”Hey Dave I’m coming to the UK, lets make some ice-cream”

Big D:    ”Sounds good. What did you have in mind?”

Jen:      ”How about cranking on top of a mountain in the Lake district?”

Big D:   “It rains an awful lot in the Lakes you know.”

Jen:      ”When has a bit of rain ever stood in the way of a Triple Motion ice-cream adventure?”

Big D:    ”Ok, lets do it.”

What I didn’t realise was that Dave had decided we should make icecream up Scafell Pike (the biggests mountain in England). Fortunately Peter jumped at the chance to advance the ice-cream cause so we had a good team for the challenge.

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Pear, ginger and lemon ice-cream

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South Africa is a great country. One of the many reasons for this is the abundance of public holidays bestowed upon its people, my favourite of which is National Braai day. For those of you who do not avidly follow the Triple Motion website and so missed out on the ‘Triple motion reaches the Southern hemisphere’ entry, a braai is a national pastime here that involves making a lekker (nice) fire and slapping a few hunks of meat on it. In the UK we would call it a BBQ, but they seem to occur so infrequently, the term has fallen out of common usage.

Anyways, I digress. So the 24th of October is National Braai day (although you may have seen it advertised as Heritage day too) and I thought there was no better way to celebrate than with a batch of ice-cream. I debated for a good long while about what flavour… maybe Wors (sausage), or perhaps biltong (dried meat). Intriguing though the prospect of meaty ice cream was, I thought best not inflict this on the wider populous just yet, so instead I thought I would go for something to fit the balmy public holiday weather. Hence pear, ginger and lemon was born.

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