Plum, Cardamon and Port Ice-cream

New Years Eve 2008 – a time to reflect, reflect a year in it's last hours, to ponder the year ahead and a time to make ice-cream. This year i was hoping to have a quiet evening with friends with plenty of food and a little wine but as with all good parties the numbers have doubled, tripled and quadrupled and I now find myself cooking for 24! 

No mean feet and after a hard year keeping the cost down is vital. Humous and babaganoush for starter. leftover turkey and sherry gratin and a mushroom and spinach lasagna for seconds and for pudding this festive ice-cream. Plums are super cheap at this time of year, there is always some port hanging around and all you will need is an icecreame machine or plenty of patience. I'm serveing mine with a brandy clementine and an old mince-pie.

Ba Humbug and Happy New Year!
  • a dozen black plums 
  • 200 grams of caster sugar
  • 12 cardamon pods
  • 500ml of port
  • 600 ml of single cream 

1. Place the plums in a baking dish, pour in the port, add the cardamon pods and stew in the oven on a medium heat for a little over an hour. The plums are ready when they are soft and your kitchen smells like Christmas. 

2. Leave the plums to cool and take out the stones and the cardamon pods. Drop them in a blender with the remaining liquid and whizz, skins and all until you have a deliciously smooth purple puree. 

3. Now add the cream and the sugar and continue to whizz. Have a little taste and add more sugar if you like it it. I prefer my ice cream to have a tart flavor.

3.  Add the sugar and the cream and whizz a little more. Pour into you ice-cream machine, pick up a good book and wait.
 More photos from the party coming soon…

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 13:45 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed or trackback from your own site. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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