Triple the Ginger, Gingerbread Ice Cream with Panettone Waffles and Drunken Apricots

This has to be one of my favourite Christmas inspired desserts. Although a little labour intensive this dessert really does pay off. The crunchy panettone waffles combined with ginger ice cream topped with the boozey apricot syrup really is something special. Although a fair bit of effort goes into this the upside it you can prepare ahead of time, reheat the waffles in the oven and simply take the ice cream out of the freezer, the apricots take no time at all.

Triple the Ginger, Gingerbread Ice Cream with Panettone Waffles and Drunken Apricots

Triple the Ginger Ice Cream –

225ml Milk

125g Soft brown sugar

450ml Double Cream

¼ tsp Salt

1 Tbsp ginger - Roughly chopped

½ Tsp Ground ginger

1 ½ Tsp Ground Cinnamon

½ Tsp Nutmeg

5 Cloves

6 Egg Yolks

2 Tbsp Whisky

60g Molasses

1 Tbsp Candied ginger – Finely chopped

10 Gingerbread biscuits (Ginger Crunch work well)- roughly crumbled

Instructions -

Heat the milk plus half of the cream in a pan over a medium heat. Once hot add in the brown sugar, salt, chopped ginger, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves stirring well until the sugar has dissolved. Allow your mixture to then cook over a low heat for an hour or two. Once the flavours have infused, combine half of the milk mixture with the whisked eggs and thoroughly mix until combined. Return the egg/milk mixture back to the pan and again thoroughly mix over a medium heat. Remove just before the liquid starts to boil. Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with water and ice and sitting a smaller bowl inside it. Add the remaining cream to the bowl then pour the hot milk/egg mixture through a sieve and into the bowl with the cream. Once strained stir thoroughly and mix in the molasses and whisky. Leave the mixture in the ice bath and transfer to the fridge for 3-4 hours before transferring to the ice cream maker. For added ginger crunch and texture, add in the candied ginger and biscuits 5 minutes before the ice cream is ready then serve or keep in the fridge in an air tight container until ready to use. – If you don’t have an ice cream maker place in an air tight container in the freezer and stir every 30 minutes until frozen.

Panettone Waffles –

250g Plain flour

7g Baking powder

20g Caster sugar

1 Tsp Ground cinnamon

470ml Full fat milk

2 Eggs

30ml Vegetable oil

Handful of dried apricots – Finely chopped

Handful of raisins – Finely chopped

Large knob of butter to grease waffle maker

Instructions –

Combine all of the above ingredients except the dried fruit in a large mixing bowl until the large lumps have disappeared - be careful to not over stir before finally adding in the chopped fruit. Allow the waffle maker to heat up and give it a generous coating of butter. Add a ladle of the mixture and allow to cook until golden, this should take no longer than a minute or so. Serve while hot or reheat in the oven until crisp.

Drunken Apricots –

Ingredients -

Allow 1 Apricot per serving

2 Generous Glugs of brandy

1 Knob of butter

2 Tbsp of brown sugar

1 Star anise

1 Clove

Instructions -

Combine all of the ingredients minus the apricots and bring to the boil before reducing the heat to low. Chop the apricots into thirds or halves and lay them chopped side down in the brandy. Allow to stew for 5 or so minutes until soft, then serve. Drizzle over juice from the pan when serving.