My First Blog Here...

Howdy everyone! Hope everyone's doing okay back home in sunny Singapore, cos I'm in the midst of exam fever in Perth. Bah... bah and more bah. Can you believe I only have the rest of today to prepare for an exam tomorrow? Grr. Not a happy bunny.

Anyway, Eulyn, I thought I'd post the ice cream recipe you were after. So now, no excuses... and no badgering me to make you guys ice cream! *bwa ha ha*

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Jamie Oliver's Semi Freddo Recipe (taken from the book, The Naked Chef, additional ranting by me)

Jamie Oliver's recipe is enough for twelve servings. I've provided the halved version cos it makes about a litre of ice cream...

The Original Ingredients
two eggs (separate the yolks and whites)
250ml double cream or thickened cream
Half a vanilla pod (or about 2 teaspoons vanilla essence should do the trick)
27.5g sugar

Starry's Additional Ingredient (figured out from his flavoured recipes)
100-150g "flavouring"** (personal preference)

*crushed nuts, cookies, candy, chocolate buttons.. whatever. However, if you are making a vanilla based ice cream (which is what I've been making so far) try to refrain from using anything too creamy (eg. peanut butter or white chocolate buttons) because the semi freddo is in itself, quite rich. Jamie Oliver suggests coupling semi freddo with fruits such as berries, something which I quite fancy cos the distinct sweetness of the fruit will complement the creamy semi freddo. I have yet to experiment with liquid flavouring and non-vanilla based semi freddo though.. will post again when I do.


METHOD
You need to divide the ingredients into three batches, and beat them in the following order....

BATCH ONE (put this in the biggest bowl you have)
2 eggs yolks + seeds scraped from half a vanilla pod + 27.5g of sugar

Seeing vanilla pods are expensive, you can substitute with vanilla essence. Beat this mixture till it is a pale yellow. Put aside.

BATCH TWO
250ml double cream or thickened cream

I couldn't find double cream (Jamie Oliver's suggestion), so I used thickened cream instead. Make sure that the cream is suitable for whipping. I used Paul's Thickened Cream, available from Cold Storage (though I suspect some NTUCs might carry it).

This is the trickiest bit. It is quite a long process, seeing that you're whisking it by hand. I suppose that you could use an electric whisk, but it might be harder to control... Whisk the cream until soft peaks form. It is very IMPORTANT not to overwhip the cream because then it will start to separate and it's irreversibly yucky...

BATCH THREE
2 egg whites + a pinch of salt

Beat this mixture until the whites form very firm peaks. This means that you can pull the egg whites with the whisk in any direction and it will stay there.

Now, add the cream, egg whites and toppings to the yolk mixture. Fold everything in GENTLY. The mixture will be a bit lumpy because of the egg whites, so try and smooth it out GENTLY. Then immediately scoop the contents into a container, and cover with cling film. Freeze it. It should be ready in a few hours, but I usually leave it overnight.

Serving Semi Freddo...
The Semi Freddo may turn rock solid after being frozen. Do not worry your head off and run around the kitchen like a headless chook (whatI did when I first made semi freddo). All you have to do is put it in the fridge so that it remains cold, but kinda defrosts, about twenty minutes before serving. You could also just leave it outside for a bit before scooping.