Fig leaf ice cream

  • Portion size: Makes approx. 1.5 litres
  • Hands-on time 15 min, plus 20 min infusing, freezing time 4-6 hours
  • Difficulty: easy
Recipe by: Louise Pickford

Fig leaves are a wonderful ingredient, and they impart such a heady, aromatic figginess to this delicious ice cream. It can be served simply with fresh figs, but is even better with a slice of our fig and hazelnut cake – especially as you can utilise the unused egg whites.

You can make this recipe with no ice cream machine – see the Know How below.

adslot-recipe-1
lock
Join Extradelicious to unlock Cook Mode

Ingredients

  • 6 young fresh fig leaves
  • 450ml double cream
  • 450ml whole milk
  • 1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped
  • 6 medium free-range egg yolks
  • 100g caster sugar

You’ll also need

  • An ice cream machine
adslot-recipe-3
lock
Join Extradelicious to unlock Cook Mode

Method

  1. Wash and dry the fig leaves. If you have a gas hob, use tongs to hold the leaves one at a time over the flame until they dry out and wilt, without letting them catch and burn. If you don’t, put them one at a time in a frying pan over a high heat for 2 minutes until they dry out and curl up. Cool then tear into pieces.
  2. Heat the milk, cream, vanilla pod and seeds and fig leaves together in a saucepan over a medium heat. Once it begins to boil, remove from the heat and set aside for 20 minutes to infuse.
  3. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until pale, then strain the infused milk mixture into them through a fine sieve (discard the leaves but wash and dry the vanilla pod to use for flavouring sugar, etc.). Return the mixture to the pan and put over a low heat. Stir constantly, cooking until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Strain the custard into a bowl and leave to cool, then churn in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
  4. Recipe continues after advertising adslot-recipe-4

Nutrition

  • 297kcals Calories
  • 26.3g (15.3g saturated) Fat
  • 3.6g Protein
  • 11.5g (11.5g sugars) Carbs
  • Nil Fibre
  • 0.1g Salt

Cook smarter

No ice cream machine? Simply freeze the custard base for 4 hours, then beat with a fork to break up the ice crystals. Continue this process until the ice cream is fully frozen.

adslot-recipe-5

Rate and review

Rate

Leave a comment, question or tip

adslot-recipe-6