Passion Fruit Ice Cream with a drizzle of honey!

There's quite a bit that's been happening around here lately. one highlight was, i had the good fortune to spend three days with the brilliant and extremely talented Rumana of Cake Bake fame. She is so professional, you'd think twice before calling her a home-based pâtissière. oh, she's much, much more than that! Check out her umpteen albums on facebook dedicated to her food art and you'll get where i'm coming from. and let me tell you, the stuff taste as amazing as it looks!! We got to learn techniques and little things watching her at work and helping her; things that i'm certain i wouldn't get watching any number of youtube videos or reading blogs.

if i have'nt mentioned it already, i have a crazy schedule that is choc-a-block with a gazillion things, most of which i love (the rest, well, you learn to live with it). BUT, i could'nt wait to get started, so i set out experimenting and baking up stuff i learnt over the past few days. It's challenging, but soo much fun! not to mention satisfying! pictures will follow soon.

In the meanwhile, my romance with passion fruit continues. It has graduated to the ice cream stage. Yes, a tub of refreshing and tangy-in-a-pleasant-way passion fruit ice cream is resting in my freezer as we speak. Happy days!

 Recipe adapted with slight changes from the ice cream guru David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop.

You will need:

-1 cup fresh cream

-6 teablespoons milk

-7 tablespoons sugar

-1/2 cup passion fruit pulp

-3 egg yolks

-pinch of salt

-1/2 teaspoon peach schnapps

-Spoonful of passion fruit seeds (optional)

-Tablespoon of honey to drizzle over the ice cream (optional)

-Mix together the passion fruit pulp and 1/2 cup of the cream in a bowl. Set a strainer above it and keep aside.

-Warm the milk, sugar, salt and remaining cream in a saucepan. In a seperate bowl, whisk together the yolks and slowly pour in half of the hot milk mixture into the yolks to temper it. Keep whisking to ensure the yolks dont get scrambled. Pour back the mixture back into the saucepan and set it back over the heat and continue stirring (scrape the bottom as you stir). Continue till the mixture thickens and you reach the 'coat back of the spoon' stage : rougly translated, it's the stage when the custard thickens lightly but more importantly, when a spoon, when dipped into the custard and removed, you run your finger through the custard along the back of the spoon, and the line remains, your custard has thickened enough to ''coat back of the spoon'. If the liquid flows back into where your fingre drew the line, then it's an indication that the custard is not thick/cooked enough.

-Pour the custard through the strainer and into the passion fruit-cram mixture. Mix in the peach schnapps and stir to incorporate. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

-Pour into a flat bottomed container with an air-tight lid and freeze. Blend with a hand held blender once it begins to set and put it back in the freezer to set. Blend again and repeat the process till you have blended and frozen it thrice. If adding, remember to add the passion fruit seeds the last time you blend the ice cream.

-Let it freeze the last time and once set, scoop out in a waffle cone or bowl (or dig in as is, like i do!), drizzle  the honey, and enjoy!

On another note, the Chennai Food Guide or the versatile group that binds all of us foodies, restaurateurs, eaters, food bloggers, food bloghoppers and Chennaites alike is having its 8th anniversary bash on the 29th of Sepetember at the Residency Towers, T-Nagar, Chennai. Tickets are priced at INR 999 per head. It is a formal dress code affair with the works: dinner and entertainment. What more can one ask for? You want an incentive besides the awesome foodie company that you will be in? There's over INR 40,000/- worth prize money to be won! Interested folks please reach out to Nishanth and he'll answer your queries and/or help book your tickets.
See you there!!