Gingerbread became a bit controversial in Norway last Christmas. Mainly because it is called pepperkake (i.e. pepper cake) and a lot of the recipes don’t contain pepper. Hence, it is linguistically wrong.
We’re a small country. We like to argue about things like this.
In English, the ginger is very clear in the recipes, and the name. But is it a bread, really? Here it doesn’t matter, because it is an ice cream.
Silliness aside. I wanted to try to incorporate Christmas flavours into ice cream, and did some googling for recipes. I found this Gingerbread Ice Cream from Tracey’s Culinary Adventures. It’s actually the first hit when I search for Gingerbread ice cream recipes.
The minute I tasted the base, and smelled it as it heated up – I understood why. It definitely spread the scent of gingerbread in my house. (I may also have licked the various utensils before washing them, and they definitely had the taste of gingerbread dough. Not that I ever eat gingerbread dough.)
My Dad, who usually does not eat gingerbread, came back for seconds on this.
I have changed the proportions a bit, and gone for light syrup instead of molasses, since I can’t find that here.
It is a rather time consuming recipe, in terms of waiting for things to infuse, to cool, and having to cool the base overnight, but as this is time you can use for other things… The active parts of the recipe does not take much time.
Ingredients
375 ml heavy cream
375 ml semi-skimmed milk (apparently the original recipe calls for whole. I took what I had in the fridge.)
1 piece of fresh ginger, approx. the size of a medium-sized thumb, peeled and roughly chopped
6 large egg yolks
80 g light brown sugar
1/4 cup light syrup
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
How to…
1. Combine the cream, the milk and the fresh ginger in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to boil.
2. Take the saucepan off the heat, and let the ginger infuse for 1 hour.
3. Mix the dry ingredients together in a heat proof bowl.
4. Just before the hour is up, mix the 6 egg yolks into the dry ingredients with a whisk. Mix well.
5. Strain the milk/cream mixture into a bowl, and discard the ginger pieces.
6. Add the mixture back into the saucepan and bring to a simmer.
7. Once it is simmering – gently and gradually pour the milk into the spice mixture while whisking.
8. After all the milk is incorporated into the spice mixture, pour this back into the saucepan and bring to boil.
9. Let it boil until it has thickened. (This took considerably less time for me with this recipe, than with other ice cream recipes.)
10. Once it has thickened: transfer to a heat proof bowl, and chill.
11. Once cool – leave in the refrigerator over night.
12. Churn in your ice cream maker according to instructions.
