When I was about seven or eight I went to visit family on Martha’s Vineyard. There were many memorable things about that holiday, the amazing round house my cousins slept in, the garden which led straight onto the beach, the horseshoe crabs, fresh limes. One of the clearest however is of our daily visit to Edgartown to have an ice cream. The same place everyday and for me the same flavour, pistachio. Isn’t that crazy that an ice cream (or many) nearly 40 years ago should still be such a vivid picture in my mind.
More prosaically I can still remember my first Cornetto, the exoticism of it and the chance that I would disappear from our Yorkshire garden and reappear in a Venetian gondola. Those were the days when you bought tubs of plain vanilla or perhaps for a treat, Neopolitan. No salted caramel or Phish food graced the shelves in those days.
Ice cream then is a treat and never more so than when you make it yourself. The flavours are all the clearer when the fruit goes from punnet to freezer in a matter of minutes. Better than this you know exactly what has gone into your mix – as children we were convinced ice cream was made from whale blubber, not a tempting thought although it never stopped us scoffing it. By the way, were you ever told that the ice cream van only plays music when it has run out of ice creams and ice lollies….?
This is a fabulously zingy and tangy ice cream, super fresh from the citrus and without the need of a custard. It is made, I promise you, in hardly and time and is very easy. My daughter made the ice cream in the photographs and it is delicious, well done Minty.
Lemon and Lime Ice Cream
1 large lemon
2 limes
120g caster sugar
400ml whipping cream
Put the zest and juice from the lemon and both limes in a bowl add the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Pour the cream into this mixture and put the bowl into the fridge until cold. When fully chilled pour into an ice cream machine and churn until thick and frozen, transfer to a plastic box with a lid and put into the freezer to firm up a little more. Take it out of the freezer 15 minutes before you want to eat it. Serves 4.
If you don’t have an ice cream machine, put the chilled mixture into the plastic box and freeze. Every couple of hours remove from the freezer, mix thoroughly then freeze again until smooth and frozen.