Ice Cream

This is a good basis upon which many flavours of ice cream may be made.

Ingredients:

• 50g cashew Nuts
• 2 Bananas
• 200g sugar
• Juice of 2 Lemons
• Juice of 2 Oranges
• 500mls Hot Water
• 75g Creamed Coconut (the darker stuff with the bits in - not the pale waxy bit)
• 2 tablespoons Peanut Oil

Method:

Put the cashew nuts in a coffee grinder and grind to a fine powder (not too fine as the oil in them will make them cake and they will be more difficult to handle). Put some of the water into a blender and add the cashew nut pulp - give it a short burst to make a suspension. With the blender on, feed in the bananas. Pour into a mixing bowl.

Put some warm water into the blender and add the creamed coconut and vegetable oil. This should form an emulsion and if it gets too thick, add some more water. Pour into the mixing bowl.

Put some warm water into the blender and add the sugar - this should dissolve fairly quickly. Add the lemon and orange juice. Pour into the mixing bowl stirring slowly. Add any final water and give it a good stir.

* Set the freezer onto fast freeze and put the bowl in the freezer. Every twenty minutes for what will seem like the next day (really only around 2 - 3 hours), take the bowl out and stir in the ice that has formed around the edge, finally giving it a thorough stirring. continue this until it is the consistency that you want. Put into a smaller container with a lid and keep in the freezer.

Ice cream should have small ice particles in it and unless you have access to several gallons of liquid nitrogen, you will end up freezing your own ice cream slow enough for ice crystals to grow several inches long giving it a coarse texture. Stirring it frequently while it freezes does not give it enough time to grow these crystals and so the texture is fine.

(*) Note, if you have an ice cream maker, it is a lot easier than this.

Variations:

1. Miss out the citrus juices and add a few drops of peppermint oil and some flakes of chocolate for a delicious chocmint
2. Add extra orange (preferably in the form of oil as adding too much orange juice will affect the acidity and cause the oil in water emulsion - the cream - to separate) to make orange ice cream. You can add chocolate to this one as well.
3. Replace the orange with the juice of one lime and add some flakes of chocolate for chocolate lime ice cream.
4. Replace half the water and the oil with Soya milk.
5. Try adding a little wine.

Storage:

It will keep for several months in a freezer - again, it usually gets eaten before anything untoward has a chance of happening to it.

Serving suggestions:

Serve with fresh fruit and wine.