LAVENDER & HONEY ICE CREAM
Since my entry about the first time I worked with lavender is long-ish, and I know you’re more interested in the recipe than the ruminations ( don’t worry, me too ;), I put my story at the bottom of the page. Take a peek if you’re curious or don’t. As long as you enjoy the ice cream!
Now, on to the important stuff!
There are a few things you should know about cooking with lavender before you begin, especially if this is your first time. Everything you need to know is in the “Notes” section below the recipe.
But! If I had to boil in down to three main rules they would be these:
1. When buying lavender for cooking make sure to only buy food-grade lavender. Sometimes stores sell lavender for other uses (potpourri anyone?) and most of the time, that lavender is not good to ingest!
2. Use restraint when cooking with lavender. A little bit goes a long way! Don’t add more than the recipe requires and don’t let the lavender steep for too long. It can go from splendid to soapy really fast
3. Since lavender is a delicate flavor, I would avoid pairing it with dark or rich flavors. Chances are, it will be overshadowed by something heavy. Instead, serve the lavender ice cream with a mellow, lightly-flavored cake, like almond cake, or something equivalent. ( And, while the taste of lavender is lovely on its own, it definitely benefits from the mellow taste of one or two madeleines perched alongside. )
Enjoy!!
Ingredients:
(Makes about a half quart)
3/4 cup heavy cream ( 180 ml )
1 1/4 cup whole milk ( 300 ml )
1/4 cup food-grade lavender ( 8 g )
1 1/5 tablespoons mild honey ( 25 g )
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar ( 50 g )
Bowl of ice water
Tools:
Heavy Bottom Pot or Double boiler (Don’t have a Double Boiler? Don’t worry, just place a medium bowl over the top of a pot with a an inch or two of water simmering in the bottom.)
Whisk
Sieve
Medium bowl
Large bowl & smaller bowl (ice bath)
Wooden spoon*
Thermometer*
*Ideal, not essential
Instructions:
1. Fill a large bowl with cold water and ice. Float a medium bowl in the cold water. (This will become an ice bath for cooling the custard later on.)
2. Add the heavy cream, milk, lavender, mild honey, and salt to your heavy-bottom pot or double boiler. Once the honey and salt have melted and you see the mixture steaming, remove from the heat. Strain the liquid into your medium bowl, using the spatula to really press all of the milk out of the lavender. Discard the lavender and pour the dairy mix back into the pot.
3. Whisk the egg yolks and the 50 grams of sugar together in a medium bowl until lighter in color (about two mins). Add a tablespoon of the steaming dairy mixture while still whisking. Repeat until you have added 3 - 4 tablespoons of the dairy mixture to the yolky sugar mix and it feels uniform. Add this yolk mixture back into the rest of the dairy mixture and return it to medium-low heat, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon. (Try to keep the heat at medium-low - under 80 degrees Celsius). The custard will be done cooking once the mixture is thick enough to glaze the back of the spoon. Run your finger across the back of the spoon. If the custard remains separated, it is done cooking.
4. Strain the custard into the medium bowl (the one you use for your ice bath) and stir in the créme fraîche légère (or sour cream or schmand, depending on where you are cooking). Blend gently it until the mixture is uniform.
5. Float the bowl in your ice bath and stir until cool. (5-ish minutes)
6. Refrigerate in an airtight container for at least four hours. Letting it sit even longer, perhaps overnight, is even better.
7. When you are ready to churn, follow the instructions of your ice cream maker. Pour your chilled custard into your machine and let it churn until it has the texture you desire. Store the ice cream in a pre-chilled, air-tight container and freeze!
This Lavender and Honey ice cream will keep for about one week.
Notes :
- Late Spring and Early Summer are great times to make this ice cream. Lavender is in full bloom in the fields and we seem to crave lightly-scented summer floral tastes. Definitely an elegant way to end a sunny lunch on the terrace.
- When buying lavender for cooking, only use food-grade! You will probably find this at a tea shop or specialty store. I scavenged Munich's Viktualienmarkt for the best organic lavender. One seller of decorative lavender stems actually lied to me to tell me that it was food grade. (Danke, dude.) In the end, I went to a tea and spices seller across the market where the labels assured me that it was verified organic (bio) food-grade lavender.
- Use restraint when cooking with lavender. A little bit goes a long way! As I was making this recipe for the first time, I wasn't sure if the ice cream would have enough lavender flavor. After all, it was only in the milk for maybe three or four minutes tops. But trust me, it was enough time! Adding more lavender or increasing the steeping time will probably push your ice cream from splendid to soapy really fast. So use a light hand when working with lavender!
- Use a light or mild honey! Since lavender is a light flavor, it will easily be overpowered by stronger flavors like honey. I opted for a light acacia honey from the mimosa plant. Mimosa trees grow in the same environment as lavender so they seem to pair well together. You can use whatever honey suits your fancy, just make sure it is light or mild.
- Do not use lavender honey! Once again, lavender can easily taste soapy if it's not balanced out by something else. If you use lavender honey, it might push your ice cream over the top.
- I would suggest serving lavender and honey ice cream with a light cake or something equivalent. Too much lavender ice cream on it's own can begin to taste a bit boring. While the taste of lavender is lovely on it's own in small quantities, it definitely benefits from the mellow buttery taste of say one or two madeleines perched alongside. (I didn't have any madeleines or almond cake handy the first time I made this. So instead, I used some small slices of touron de yema from the south of France that my aunt and uncle-in-law gave us.)
- Since lavender is a delicate flavor, we don't suggest pairing it with dark or rich flavors. The lavender would be lost under all that richness!
- Toppings: Light caramel, Light cakes or cookies (madeleines, shortbread, etc.), Light Honey
Great pairings for Lavender & Honey:
Sweet: Light Cakes (Vanilla, Almond, etc.), Oats/Granola, Light Caramel
The Ruminations
Like lemonade, rosé, and sunscreen, lavender smacks thoroughly of summer.
Lavender isn't big where I'm from in the states and always seemed like a candle or soap more than an actual plant you would have in your garden.
My first real encounter with lavender was in a crumbling village in the east of France, about three quarters of the way from Munich to Paris. We were visiting Thomas’ family at an old house (not ancient, just think avocado bathroom fixtures and an abundance of wood paneling) and exploring the colorful half-timbered houses of Alsace.
Coming back from a walk around the village, I found my father-in-law on the terrace fiddling with a heap of lavender stems. There weren't many flowers or herbs in my childhood garden, especially not ones we actually used for anything. So for me it is quite charming to see how some people find a way to engage with everything the world around them.
He showed me how to fold the lavender back over onto itself creating a fragrant little bundle tied off with ribbon. Not only does it give off a lovely scent, it keeps unwanted buggies like mosquitos and moths away. (Scorpions don't like it either, but they're not a huge, huge problem in Munich.)
As I sat there folding the long purple stems in the sunshine, I couldn’t help thinking about a place I hadn't been in over ten years... Texas.
If you didn’t know already, Texas is particularly proud of everything "Texas," all the way down to their state flower... the Texas Bluebonnet. Now, I didn't see a lot of bluebonnets around my hometown, but we were taught to love (and respect) them as early as primary school. More than one arts and crafts class was focused on making bluebonnets out of blue beads and green pipe cleaners. And once you got up to fourth grade, you were very likely to find it on the Monday morning pop quiz.
Texas Bluebonnets in a field (photo: Nagaraju Gajula)
Between the Alsatian summer heat and the long, cool-hued flowers, my mind wandered back in time to a dusty school playground, flipping through pictures of everything “Texas” in my State History companion. The Alamo, the Mockingbird, the noble Pecan tree... I learned it all.
The thing about traveling in unfamiliar places is that you find yourself weaving weird connections between the past and the present. We draw on the past to make sense of what we are going through at the moment, and it is very comforting in many ways.
While the two worlds may be quite different, it's the existence of contrast and harmony that give us an understanding of depth and beauty.
So, let this delicate lavender ice cream transport you to wherever it wants...
Just enjoy!!