Okay, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t make a dessert for few more months but blame it on summers and the month of May which is special in many ways, I had to do this and I am certainly not feeling guilty. Summers are meant for ice creams and it always reminds me of my vacation days, when I waited endlessly for the gola wala to show up and then enjoy the crushed ice on a stick dunked in sugar syrup, comparing the colour of our tongues, laughing endlessly on silly jokes with friends. I have not grown up! I still get very excited looking at the gola and laugh gleefully like a 5 year old when I dunk it my sugar syrup loaded kaanch ki glass and take a chuski. Makes you forget everything in life. It is unhealthy, sugar loaded but pure nostalgia for me and I am sure for many of you as well, especially from the 90’s era.
Summers also meant mom making homemade ice creams like the paal ice or rose milk ice and frankly we never visited a fancy ice cream parlour until we started working and earning some money. Seeing a variety of ice creams behind the glass door till date excites me and I love indulging in various flavours.
So when my husband caught me ogling at ice cream pictures on IG the other day, all he wanted for the weekend was some ice cream. While his obvious choice was Mango, I suggested we use up the Almonds and the chocolate chips that we had purchased from Coorg and make a roasted almond ice cream. I did not want an extremely cream loaded ice cream this time and wanted to stick to my basics, how my mother made ice cream at home with the prime ingredient, Milk. So, I finally zeroed down to the Tarla Dalal Website as I needed an eggless ice cream too so the website is my obvious choice for vegetarian dishes and loved the fact that she did it minus loads of cream and could still get a lovely texture. The recipe is from here and I doubled it, reduced the quantity of cream, decreased the sugar content and added a lot of coarse almonds and choco chips to make it interesting.
In case of foodies, the trips to the kitchen / freezer is directly proportional to the menu involved. My husband stood by me offering his relentless support by licking spoons of the ice cream mixture certifying that I had done a good job, waiting anxiously for the ice cream to set and was also the one to have the first scoop, thereafter going for another round blaming it on the terrible humidity and weather of Mumbai. At first, I behaved like a good girl and didn’t indulge and then blame it on PMS – I was unstoppable.
We finally realized that the weighing scale will soon show us the number we both shall dread and started planning our walks and continued with our diet in place. The thing about us both is that even though we love food, we are quick to realize our faults and work towards making amends.
I am taking this ice cream for the A To Z Challenge as the ingredient for the month of May starts with Alphabet 'A' so I chose Almonds and made a delicious dessert option apt for summers. A group of wonderful bloggers are participating in this monthly event initiated by Jolly Maker.
Also, my original plan was to scoop the ice cream but then I suddenly thought of cutting them into squares and serving, just like how you get it in Chowpatty or Juhu beach, pieces of kulfi cut and served on a plate. Huge plus - takes some time to melt, hence could manage decent shots.
Check out the recipe below for the Roasted Almond and Choco chip ice cream (with step by step pics) and if you are planning to make Mango Ice cream the season’s favourite, do try the recipe on the blog.
Recipe for Roasted Almond and Choco Chip Icecream
Icecream made with One Litre Milk, easily serves a family of 8 to 10 people.
Prep Time - 15 mins
Cook Time - 20 mins
Passive time (including freezing and blending once) - 18 hours.
Ingredients
- Cow Milk – 1 litre
- Cornflour – 3 tblsp mixed with ¼ cup of milk
- Sugar – ¼ cup
- Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp
- Roasted Almonds – 1 cup
- Choco Chips – ¼ cup
- Cream – 150 ml
Method
- Boil one litre of milk in a thick bottom vessel.
- Mix cornflour with milk and keep aside.
- Once the milk boils, add the cornflour mixture and stir it continuously on low flame until you see a thick consistency, which should be around 7 – 10 minutes.
- Add the sugar and keep stirring the mixture to avoid burning of the milk at the bottom.
- Once the milk is thick, switch off the flame and allow the milk to cool until it reaches room temperature.
- Then add the vanilla essence, the cream (whip it once - no stiff peaks) and mix well.
- Add this mixture to an ice cream tin that has a lid or in case you don’t have a lid, you can cling wrap it or use an aluminium foil too to cover the top.
- Freeze this mixture for atleast 6 to 8 hours.
- After 8 hours, blend the ice cream mixture that has somewhat set to ensure the ice crystals are broken and a smooth texture is developed.
- Pour this thick mixture back into the tin and add the roasted and coarse almonds, choco chips too.
- Mix well with a spoon and freeze the ice cream (with lid or foil) over night or for atleast 10 hours.
- Scoop / Slice and enjoy the ice cream or if you are like me who prefer slices of ice cream, go ahead and do the same.
Recipe Notes –
- If you are making this for kids, ensure the sugar is ¾ cup or more as they would prefer it sweeter, unlike us. We both prefer very less sugar in ice creams.
- You can add almond essence too but I prefer Vanilla essence in most ice creams that are not pulp based.
- I have used Amul cream (not the whipping cream)
Vidya Narayan