Encouraged by this gorgeous weather, I started getting into more ‘churning’ action too
I was looking for some new flavour combinations and couldn’t resist trying out a couple that I found in Tessa Kiros’s beautiful book, Venezia.
The first recipe I tried is Zabaglione ice cream. Being a custard fanatic, it’s no wonder I love Zabaglione – you can add other flavours like vanilla, cinnamon or lemon zest, but as Tessa says I like mine simple too, making it just with egg yolks, sugar and Marsala, served still warm. It reminds me of when I tasted it in Rome where it was served with wild strawberries.
Although I knew this flavour was going to work as ice cream, I was still excited to taste it and it turned out lovely indeed. Tessa’s recipe was rather on the sweet side, so I decided to stick to my basic recipe with an addition of berry swirl, an idea that I found in David’s book. It’s delicious on its own, or served with fruits.
The other summery recipe is called Sgroppino – it’s a kind of lemon slushie for adults mainly served in Northern Italy – lemon ice cream blend with a little prosecco and vodka. What intrigued me about this recipe was using lemon ice cream, not lemon sorbet (there are some versions using sorbet too). I’m not normally a fan of fruit ice creams as they tend to lose the intensity of the fruit flavours, but this one works as the lemon flavour remains strong and I loved the milkiness with a touch of bubbly
You can add more prosecco and vodka if you would like, but like Tessa, I prefer to enjoy this more as a dessert rather than a boozy drink – you don’t want to pass out for the afternoon! I actually added limoncello instead of vodka that I made a while ago and it worked just as well. You can serve this as a palate cleanser instead of a dessert. I didn’t have a chance to try this last time I was in Venice, so I shall look forward to enjoying it hopefully sometime soon…