Sweet Cicely Ice Cream
Sweet cicely is one of the early umbellifers that line the roadsides in Spring. It starts greening up as early as March, with an eruption of white flowers in April and May, before setting seeds in May and June. With other herbs and greens, plants are best harvested early, before they flower, but I find you get the most potent aniseed flavour from sweet cicely when the seed pods have set and are still green. If you don't have sweet cicely or don't like aniseed, substitute fresh mint for the best, freshest mint ice cream ever.
Need help identifying Sweet Cicely? Wild Food UK has a great guide here.
Sweet Cicely Ice Cream
Yield: 4 servings
Prep time: 12 HourCook time: 40 MinInactive time: 11 H & 20 MTotal time: 24 Hour
grab this wild umbellifer just as it sets its seeds for a delicious aniseed infused ice cream
Ingredients
- 150g sweet cicely picked with green seed pods. You can use all green parts of the plant.
- 600ml double cream
- 400g milk
- 7 egg yolks (retain the whites for meringues)
- 150g sugar
- 2g salt
Method
- Mix the sweet cicely, cream and milk in a pot and set to simmer on low for 20 minutes.
- The pot should never come to a boil and be just too warm to touch (about 45c/120f).
- Remove from heat and let stand for 2 hours to infuse.
- Strain the herbs out of the milk.
- In a small pot, mix the eggs, salt and sugar.
- If the cream mix is still warm, add it one cupful at a time to the egg mix.
- Once the milk and eggs are fully mixed together, begin heating the custard mixture over a low heat, stirring constantly.
- Bring up temperature slowly to 160f/70c, stirring continuously. The mix will thicken and coat the back of a spoon.
- Remove from the heat and let cool completely.
- Refrigerate the custard mix overnight. Make sure your ice cream maker is in the freezer.
- When the custard mix is cold and the ice cream bowl is frozen, set your ice cream to churn until thick.
- Once churned, freeze for 2 hours.
- Serve with its traditional pairing of rhubarb crumble!
