CHRISTMAS PUDDING ICE CREAM

Plenty of requests for this recipe, I won't lie I found it online here and made it pretty much as per the recipe with a few tweaks. Firstly I used Morgans Spiced rum instead of brandy because I like it better and I didn't soak the fruit for more than a day. I don't like boozy fruit that much, who actually does? I think thats part of the reason people don't like Christmas pudding. I also have an ice cream machine so it was super easy for me.

This ice cream was so yummy if I do say so myself and I will be making it again for Christmas inside a baked alaska! Wonderful flavours & smells of Christmas, the fragrant spices and texture from the fruit with real cranberries for a burst of liquid in your mouth and the bite from the ginger nut biscuits crushed up and mixed through.  More please!

This made about 1 litre of ice cream in my machine


Ingredients
For the boozy fruit
100g of frozen cranberries
150g Packet of mixed fruit -  is used dried cherries, sultanas and apricots
6tbsp Morgans Spiced Rum
2tbsp Rapadura sugar  (could just be brown sugar as well)


For the Ice cream
2 cinnamon sticks
1/4tsp ground nutmeg
1/2tsp ground ginger
1/4tsp caraway seeds
4 whole cloves
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
600ml double cream
3 egg yolks
100g rapadura sugar (again brown is fine)
Half a pack or so of ginger nut biscuits (not sure how many used so use as many you you see fit!)


Method
For the boozy fruit, pop all the fruit, sugar and rum in to a saucepan and heat & stir for a few minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Leave this to cool, then put in to the fridge for a few hours. I know some people like a strong rum flavour and you can leave it for days or weeks and I don't and I left mine half a day which was just fine with me.

Separately prep the ice cream by placing all the spices in a saucepan and heating for a couple of minutes to release the aroma. Add the cream and vanilla and stir with a wooden spoon, bring it to the boil but not too quickly and watch the cream doesn't stick to the pot.
In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar then pour the hot cream in to the eggs. Whisk together a minute then pour back in to the saucepan and place on the heat for 5-10 minutes.  Stirring with a wooden spoon, it will thicken a little and is ready when your spoon is coated.

Allow the cream to cool then place in a container in the fridge until its chilled. Around 4 or 5 hours.

Once ready to make the ice cream take the chilled cream mix and push it through a sieve so you don't get any of the spices in your ice cream. Place the sieved cream in your freezing cold and I mean its been chilling for at least 48 hours, ice cream cold box and pop in the machine. It should only take 30 minutes until its smooth creamy ice cream. Those of you without a machine, sorry its slightly more time consuming, you need to keep it in a cold box in the freezer and take it out to stir every hour to ward off those ice crystals until it reaches ice cream consistency.

For me, once I had ice cream I folded through some crushed ginger nut cookies. I strained the boozy fruit and folded that in as well. I didn't want the fruit or cookies to break up any more which is why I chose to fold them in at the end after the machine had mixed the ice cream. Then everything goes in a container in the freezer till it was ready to serve it. Voila!

I served my with warm homemade custard on the side.

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