08 July, 2012

yoghurt vanilla ice-cream

You have to find ways of surviving this heat. Therefore, as far as I can see all Hungarian food blogs are full of ice-cream and lollies.
They appear in all shape, size and flavour so I thought I have to join in :) (yeah, sometimes there is nothing wrong with following the masses, is there?!). Since, I have no male adult audience at home the purpose is purely self-indulgence but as I look after myself, it has to be the "bikini-body friendly" version of the good-old vanilla ice-cream...so I won't feel bad eating it after doing a bit of a sport, but to be honest in 38°C mere existence is a sport.
lolly

3 egg yokes
3 tbs of sugar (for me equivalent of sweetener)
300 ml milk (I used 2,8% for added creaminess)
1 vanilla pod and its seeds
1 tsp of dried lavender florets (optional)
200g natural yoghurt

Pour the milk in a pan, and add the seeds of the vanilla, pop in the empty pod, as well the lavender (if you are not keen you can leave this out). Bring to boil and take off the heat, let it cool-off for 5 minutes. In the meantime whisk the egg yokes with the sugar (or sweetener) until it turns to pale yellow and pour (sieve - actually, you have to get rid of the lavender and the vanilla pod) the walk milk over it and put the bowl over simmering water (in French it is called bain marie if you keen to know) but before doing that prepare some icy water in your sink or in a bigger bowl. Stir it constantly until it starts thickening. There are two ways to learn if it is done. 1) the temperature of the mixture is about 80°C. For which you need a kitchen thermometer to figure out. or 2) put your spatula into the mixture, take it out and draw a line with your finger and if the little "patch" remains on the back of the spoon then it's thick enough. Now, you gotta be quick, since the residual heat of the bowl is going to keep cooking the mixture if you don't put it into ice-cold water to cool it (just pop the bowl into the icy water, make sure that the kitchen tap is not actually dribbling over it - trust me it has happened to me once that the cream curdled from the dribbling water...). Let it cool for 5 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Then put the mixture in a big box (the bigger, the better as on big surface it cools quicker) and put it in the fridge for 15-20 minutes. Then all you have to do is to stir in the yoghurt, put it back to the fridge, then either churn in your ice-cream maker or freeze in the fridge. If you don't have an ice-cream maker you can still do three things to make this look-like ice-cream.  a) add choc. chips or dried berries etc to the vanilla cream then pour the mixture into a loaf tin and freeze as it is and call-it a semifreddo b) you pour the cream in lolly maker (like this one) and call it a lolly, or cover the lolly in chocolate and call it Magnum vanilla... or c) pour in an ice-cream box, stir the content with a fork every hour until it sets and it is going to resemble like shop-bought ice-cream (though less creamy).