Parkin Ice Cream

If you happen to have any parkin left over following Bonfire Night this ice cream makes an excellent dessert. The recipe is from my book First Catch Your Gingerbread but great minds think alike. Fellow Food Historian, Dr Neil Buttery, served a similar ice cream at one of his supper clubs a while back and chose this dish as his contribution to the virtual pot luck supper discussed at the end of my first Comfortably Hungry podcast.

You can find a great traditional Yorkshire parkin recipe over on Neil's blog, British Food: A History. You can also find Dr Alessandra Pino's rum laden gingerbread inspired by Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca from the forthcoming A Gothic Cookbook here.

This is made along similar lines to the classic brown bread ice cream. Simple to prepare and delicious to eat.

Ingredients

• 100g parkin

• 300ml single cream

• 2 tsp ground ginger

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 large egg yolks

• 1 tsp cornflour

• 100g soft dark brown sugar

• 300ml double cream

• 3 tbsp whisky, brandy or rum

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180℃.

2. Place the parkin in a food processor, then process until you have fine-ish crumbs. Place on a baking sheet the cook for around 5-10 minutes, stirring half way through but make sure they don’t burn. Depending on how fresh your parkin is this process may take a little less than 10 minutes or a little longer. The crumbs will feel soft when you first take them out but should crisp up a few minutes after you take them out of the oven. Allow to cool.

3. Place the single cream, ginger and vanilla in a small saucepan and heat to boiling point.

4. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks, cornflour and brown sugar until thoroughly combined and slightly paler than when you started. Pour the hot cream over the egg yolks stirring continuously.

5. Return the cream mixture to the saucepan and heat gently until the custard has thickened. Pour into a jug or bowl and cover the surface with clingfilm (to prevent a skin from forming).

6. Whisk the double cream with your alcohol of choice to the soft peak stage (it should be thick but reasonably floppy). Fold this into the cooled custard.

7. Churn in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturers instructions. Once frozen (but not solid) fold in the cooled, parkin crumbs then transfer to a container. Place in the freezer until required. Remove it from the freezer around 10-15 minutes before you want to serve it.