Chamomile Honey Ice Cream Recipe -

Everything you ever wanted to know about keeping bees is detailed in Doug Purdie’s book, Backyard Bees. In addition to teaching us all about bees, he creates some delicious honey based recipes. He shared his recipe for Chamomile Honey Ice Cream with ele for Issue 6 of ele Magazine.

Note this ice cream recipe does require an ice cream churn.

Chamomile Honey Ice Cream

Ingredients (makes 1 litre)

560 ml (19¼ fl oz/2¼ cups) milk
400 ml (14 fl oz) thin (pouring) cream (35% milk fat)
1 tablespoon chamomile tea leaves
200 g (7 oz) honey
8 egg yolks
2 cups ice, for cooling custard
Waffle cones, to serve

Method

Place milk, cream and chamomile tea leaves in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil and remove from the heat. Cover and leave to infuse for 30 minutes. Pour through a fine sieve into a large jug and discard chamomile leaves.

Heat honey in a medium saucepan over medium heat and allow to boil for 5 minutes until it begins to caramelise – do not allow it to burn. Slowly pour in milk mixture, whisking constantly until honey has dissolved.

Whisk egg yolks in a large bowl and slowly pour in hot milk honey mixture while whisking.

Prepare a large metal bowl set over a bowl of ice – you will use this to cool the milk and yolk mixture.

Pour the milk and yolk mixture into a clean saucepan and stir over low heat until it reaches 82C (180F) or begins to thicken – do not allow it to boil. Pour through a fine sieve into the large metal bowl set over ice and allow to cool. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold.

Churn using an ice-cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Chef’s Note: Churning the mixture before it’s cold may mean your ice cream doesn’t set, so don’t rush it. You can place the custard in the freezer for 30 minutes or so to speed up the cooling process.