Happy Easter. I hope your weekend was filled with the usual suspects of Easter delight. Mine was.
So on this last day of the Easter weekend, not having quite had my fill of Easterness, due to perhaps an unfortunate incident involving the ruination of actual homemade hot cross buns due to the preheating of an oven for garlic bread whilst my darling little buns cooled in there… I decided to make Hot Cross Bun Ice-Cream. No, I didn’t mash up a heap of buns into store-bought vanilla, instead, I captured the essence of the bun in a decadent and deeply satisfying ice-cream.
Ingredients
- 4 egg yolks1 cup milk
- 1 cup double/heavy cream
- 100g caster sugar1 vanilla pod (scored down the middle)1 cinnamon stick
- ground cinnamon
- mixed spice
- ground cloves
- 1/2 cup currants
- 1/4 cup mixed peel
- chocolate syrup to draw on the cross with
Directions
- Pour the milk in a saucepan and bring slowly up to almost boiling point. Do not let it boil. Turn off heat and place the vanilla bean and cinnamon stick into it and leave to infuse for about 20 minutes.
- In a bowl, mix the egg yolks and the sugar until thick. Carefully remove the vanilla bean and cinnamon stick from the milk and scrape out the seeds into the milk. Add at least one teaspoon of the cinnamon and mixed spice and half a teaspoon of the ground cloves. Keep adding spices until your desired flavour intensity is achieved. I added quite a lot as I prefer flavours that sock you in the mouth.
- Pour the milk into the egg mixture whilst stirring. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat gently, stirring until the custard thickens. Do not bring to the boil or it will curdle. When you can see a film over the back of your spoon, it’s time to remove the saucepan from the heat. Leave to cool.
- When the custard base is cold, stir in the cream. Add the currants and mixed peel. Transfer mixture into your ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
- When ready to serve, draw a cross in chocolate syrup over your scoop of ice-cream. Presto! Hot Cross Bun Ice-Cream. Enjoy.
