Thursday 2 June 2011

Because, Given the Weather Yesterday, We Were All Screaming for Ice Cream


So hot yesterday, so nice and cool today. But given the approach of summer, and the fact that local fruit is still several weeks away, I trotted out a delicious hot weather dessert recently that I thought I'd share, just for fun. It's an adaptation of a pear mousse recipe with a little zing to it.

Pear-Ginger Ice

Four pears (storage ones, like Bosc, work fine)
1 cup of water
3/4 cup of sugar
2 Tb of chopped fresh ginger.
1 envelope of gelatin

Core and cut the pears in dice (no need to peel). Put them, the water, sugar and ginger in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the pears are cooked through, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, cool a bit, and blend until smooth.

Dissolve the gelatin in 1/4 cup of water, or whatever the envelope suggests. Stir into the pear-ginger mixture. Pour into a dish that can go in the freezer. Freeze for several hours or over night, removing at least once to stir (you can let the mixture sit on the counter for a half an hour if its too hard to stir) in order to break up the ice crystals. Freeze again.

Delicious! Before you stir after the first freezing step, you can fold in a cup of whipped cream, but I think that doesn't add much.

Photo: Pears last summer on our trees in back: too many for the squirrels to steal completely.

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