Malt Ice-Cream

Malt Ice-Cream: made with malt extract (L) and Ovaltine (R)

Wotchers!

Here’s a very quick and easy recipe for the BEST ICE-CREAM EVAR!

SO creamy, SO soft-scoopy, NO ice-cream maker required – which is great if, like me, you have a miniscule amount of worktop space.

It is almost infinitely customisable with whatever you want to flavour it with, takes all of five minutes to make and just needs 12 hours in the freezer to firm up. No ice-crystals, no needing to stir it every hour, just mix, pop in a suitable container and bung it in the freezer.

NINJA EDIT: Just leaping in here to copy my response to Judith down below on how easy it is to customise this foolproof method with your own custom flavourings. You can add any flavouring you like.

• For liquids such as vanilla, or rum (and raisin – although soaking the fruit in the alcohol is probably the best approach) or freeze-dried fruit powders, I recommend stirring into the condensed milk, before adding the cream.

• For ‘bits’ such as dried fruit (rum and raisin), tutti frutti, chocolate chips, biscuit pieces, crushed Maltesers, Crunchie, Biscoff, etc – stir them through once the cream has been whipped.

• Other flavours I’ve made using the cream/condensed milk base:

  • Salted Caramel: 1 x tin Carnation Caramel condensed milk, ½ tsp salt.

  • Pale Ale: Reduce (by v. low simmer, not rapid boiling) 500ml pale ale to 100-ish ml. The slow simmer caramelises the sugar in the beer. Very different and flavourful.

  • Chocolate Chip: 1tbs vanilla extract & as many choc chips as you like. It might seem a lot of vanilla, but freezing mutes flavours, so you have to add a little more to compensate.

I used to have a spoonful of malt every morning when I was a child, I love malt loaf and Maltesers, it pairs very well with chocolate – what’s not to love?

I had some malt extract left in the cupboard after the Focaccia recipe and the Malt Popcorn, and I also had some Ovaltine, so I decided to make two half-batches to see which worked out best.

Alas, they are both amazing, and taste incredible, for different reasons. The malt extract version is amazingly exactly like malt extract (duh), but the cream and sugar give it  amuch more luxurious flavour. The Ovaltine version has that hint of chocolate that just brings out and enhances the rich, malty flavouring. So now I have over a litre of delicious malt ice-cream just TEMPTING me from the freezer 24/7. Woe. Have so far resisted ice-cream for breakfast, but my resolve is weakening. Send help, plz!

But enough chat, on with the recipe which, I genuinely believe is the only one you’ll ever need.

Malt Ice-Cream

This is for two half batches of ice-cream, using a whole pot of cream and a whole tin of condensed milk. I used half of each per batch. You can buy condensed milk in a squeezy bottle, which means you can make just a half batch if preferred. If you want to make a full batch of just one of the malt flavourings, use the whole pot of cream, the whole tin of condensed milk, and 150g of whicever malt flavouring you choose.

600ml double cream
1 x 397g tin sweetened condensed milk
75g malt extract and/or 75g Ovaltine

• Put half of the condensed milk into a bowl and add the malt extract. Stir to combine.
• Add 300ml of chilled double cream and whisk until thickened and pillowy.
• Transfer mixture to a suitable container and put in the freezer.
• Repeat the above with the Ovaltine. Since it is a powder, it will be a little trickier to mix into the condensed milk, but don’t be too precious about it, as pockets of Ovaltine powder are an unexpectedly nice touch.
• Again, transfer to a suitable container and freeze.
• Ice-cream will be ready the following day.