Lemon Curd Ripple Ice Cream with Lemon and Basil Syrup

This blogpost marks a rare occasion, an occasion when I am posting an ice cream recipe (which isn’t particularly rare) when the sun is actually shining (which is!!!). It seems to have become a common practise to nip out of work at the end of the lunch hour to feed my ice cream addiction. And with this zesty recipe I have been further feeding my habit out of my own freezer at home.

Some left over lemon curd in the fridge inspired the lemon curd ripple ice cream (which is adapted from the lemon and poppy seed ice cream cake recipe from the Guardian). Another condensed ice cream recipe, I love these because they are so easy to make, require no churning and don’t contain any eggs!!

The accompanying basil and lemon syrup was inspired by my bumper basil crop. I have always attempted to grow my own basil from seed, and have always failed miserably. But this year, thanks to the wondrous appearance of a golden ball of warmth that seems to be permanently visible in the sky, my basil is blooming! And so I thought I would experiment a little, so that I could enter my ice cream recipe into this months Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream challenge over at Kavey Eats…..the theme for which this month is herbs.

The basil syrup is rather subtle but makes a really fresh syrup to accompany this zingy ice cream. And as suggested by Kavey I have also entered this recipe into the cooking with herbs challenge as run by Lavender and Lovage.

FOR THE ICE CREAM

2 lemons

1 tin condensed milk (397g)

150ml plain yoghurt

250ml double cream

100g lemon curd

Zest and then juice both lemons.

Put the condensed milk into a large mixing bowl and stir in the lemon juice and zest until combined. 

Then stir in the yoghurt.

In a separate bowl whip the cream until soft peaks are formed. Fold the cream into the condensed milk mixture.

Transfer the mix to a freezer-proof container. Finally Dollop the lemon curd on top of the ice cream mix and ripple into the mixture using a ford until distributed throughout the mixture.

Transfer to the freezer until frozen (I left mine over night before tucking in!).

FOR THE SYRUP

A large sprig of basil

Peel and juice from 1 lemon

75g caster sugar

100ml water.

Peel the lemon using a vegetable peeler before juicing the lemon. Add the juice and peel into a small saucepan with the basil, sugar and water. Place over a low heat and allow the sugar the dissolve.

Increase the heat a little and allow the mixture to gently bubble until reduced to a syrup.

Pass the syrup through a sieve to remove the basil stalks and lemon peel, allow to cool and spoon over the ice cream to serve.