I Scream!

Back in the day we used to make ice cream with our old salt and ice hand churned ice cream maker, bought with 'gold bond' stamps which you collected at the grocery and later exchanged for products somewhere downtown. Flavours like sapodilla and barbadine ruled! Not having cream available, ice cream in Trinidad is made with evaporated milk, condensed milk and packet custard. Ice cream making inevitably took all day, and resulted in being covered in salty water, but it sure tasted good.

In an attempt to recreate child hood nostaliga I've made green tea ice cream and coffee ice cream. The green tea uses sencha powder which I bought online and the coffee is made with espresso coffee beans, but the recipe calls for way too many beans so it is abit intense. The ice cream maker works well, but given the rapidity with which it freezes things I am sure that the old fashioned makers incorporate more air into the ice cream, and these remain a tad dense.

Recipes are from Ices: the definitive guide by Liddell and Weir. The book contains a great range of flavours including really unusual ones and some nice ice cream history. The recipes however are slightly wonkey and you would be wise to take the flavouring ingredients with a pinch of salt. Given that very little volume is added in modern ice cream makers the flavour does not dilute as much as you would think, so they call for way too much flavour.