Serves: Makes just under 1 litre
This heavenly ice cream has all the flavours of a classic cheesecake in frozen form. Making ices without an electric churner is slightly laborious and the ice cream is grainier but don’t let that put you off . The high fat content gives this ice cream a rich creaminess and a soft texture even if you haven’t churned it in an electric machine. Serve on its own or with some soft fruit mashed into a rough purée.
Ingredients
- 6 medium egg yolks
- 140g caster sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 300ml whole milk
- 200ml double cream
- 75g digestive biscuits
- 30g unsalted butter, melted
- 250g full fat cream cheese e.g. Philadelphia
Method
- Place the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl and whisk until light and fluffy. Heat the milk and cream together in a saucepan and bring to just below boiling point. Pour over the egg yolks and whisk until thoroughly combined. Clean the saucepan (the milk and cream tend to stick a bit to the base) and pour the custard base back into the pan. Stir over a low heat until the custard thickens just enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Take off the heat and leave to cool. You can speed up this process by standing the pan in a sink filled with 2-3 cm of cold water.
- While the custard is cooling you can make the cheesecake crumbs. Crush the digestives to a fine crumb and stir in the melted butter. Leave to chill in the fridge. The mixture will harden but you can break up the crumbs before adding to the ice cream later.
- When the custard is cold beat in the cream cheese. Pour into an ice cream maker and churn until thick. Spoon into a container and fold in the biscuit crumbs but don’t overmix. Freeze until hard. If you haven’t got an electric ice cream maker pour the cheesecake custard into a suitable container and freeze until on the point of setting firm. Scrape into a food processor and process for a few seconds to break up the ice crystals. Spoon back into the container and freeze until almost hard. Fold in the biscuit crumbs and freeze until hard. Bring out of the freezer about 5-10 minutes before you want to serve the ice cream.