I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but hasn’t this year has absolutely flown past?! I can’t believe that Christmas is only a day away, I think my brain is still stuck sometime between August and October. My favourite thing about Christmas is always food, family and friends, you can’t get better than that. I haven’t done as much Christmas baking as I would have liked to this year but I really wanted to tell you about this awesome gingerbread ice cream before the big day, just in case you’re looking for something delicious to serve for dessert.

This post is quite a long time coming, I came up with the idea last year but I wanted to wait until I had perfected the recipe before sharing it here. I took the flavours of a traditional gingerbread biscuit – golden syrup, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla and spices – and transformed them into a delicately spiced and completely delicious ice cream that would be delicious served alongside a chocolate cake or pudding. If I had more time I would have loved to crush freshly baked gingerbread biscuits into the ice cream itself for a bit of textural contrast, but it’s beautiful as it is too.

And just in case you’re still looking for something to cook on Christmas Day, here’s a list of some awesome festive recipes from the last few years on spicyicecream.
– Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies
– Christmas Pudding Ice Cream
– Fruit Mince Pies
– Gingerbread Men
– Little Figgy Christmas Cakes

Or if you’re really daring
– Gingerbread House
– Buche De Noel

I also want to wish all my wonderful readers a Merry Christmas filled with lots of delicious food, and a very Happy New Year! Hope that everyone enjoys some well-deserved time off and that everyone travelling comes back safely! I’m looking forward to recharging my batteries and coming back with lots of great recipes!

Gingerbread Ice Cream
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz
Makes 1 Litre

• 1 ½ cups milk
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and chopped (or 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger)
• 2 peppercorns
• 1 cinnamon stick
• ½ vanilla bean
• Pinch salt
• ½ cup golden syrup
• 1 ½ cps heavy cream
• 5 large egg yolks

Warm the milk, sugar, ginger, peppercorns, cinnamon and vanilla seeds and bean in a medium saucepan until just boiling. Remove from the heat, cover, and allow to infuse for at least 1 hour. Rewarm before using.

Pour the golden syrup and cream into a large bowl. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly strain the warm milk mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan. Discard the solids.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through a strainer and stir into the cream. Stir over an ice bath until cool.

Chill the mixture until cold and then freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.