Ras Malai Ice Cream (Cardamom Ice Cream)

At the risk of sounding completely up myself, my favourite ice cream is the one that I make.  It is a recipe that I came up completely by myself and after a few trials, it tastes exactly how I intended - like the Indian dessert called Ras Malai.

Now it's no secret, Indians don't do dessert very well.  Starters, mains, sundries - All incredible.  Dessert - Not so much, how is it possible that every single dessert in a country's cuisine tastes exactly the same as each other?!  That said, there is one hidden gem in there that doesn't instantly give you cavities.  Ras Malai consists of a kind of curdled cheese bathing in the most floral, fragrant, sweet milk you have ever tasted.  I know what you're thinking - Curdled cheese in a dessert?!  I'm thinking that too, but it was not the cheese that I had in mind when I set out to make this ice cream recipe, it was the incredible, sweet, cardamom milk.  Get ready for your new favourite flavour of ice cream.

Ingredients:

20g Peeled Pistachios

20g Cashew nuts

30g Almonds

10 cardamom pods

400ml Full-Fat Milk

300ml Double Cream

200ml Sweetened Condensed Milk

3 Egg Yolks

3 tbs White Sugar

0.25 tsp Salt

15g Butter

5 Threads of Saffron (optional)

Method: 

1) Roughly chop the nuts and toast them in a dry pan for a couple of minutes.

2) Peel the 10 cardamom pods and collect the seeds.  Grind the seeds to a powder in a pestle and mortar.

3) Add the butter and ground cardamom to the pan with the toasted nuts.

4) Cook on low for a few minutes before adding the milk, cream and condensed milk. 

5) Simmer and stir for 15 minutes.  Do not allow to boil.

6) Put the 3 egg yolks in a bowl with the sugar and whisk to a paste.

7) Pour the milk mixture through a sieve and set aside to cool down a little.

8) Pick out about half the nuts from the sieve and set aside.  Now I choose to peel the nuts at this point but it is probably unnecessary and takes forever.

9) Slowly add the warm milk mixture to the egg yolk bowl and whisk continuously.  Transfer to a pan and bring back to the heat.  Stir continuously until the mixture coats the back of a spoon.  Add the peeled nuts.

10) Transfer the mixture to your ice cream container and put in the fridge.

11) Once cool, put the mixture into your ice cream maker and follow the usual instructions.

12) Enjoy now and thank me later.