Amarula and Almond Ice Cream

I've been wanting to post this recipe for home-made ice-cream for a while now, but it's quite a challenge to take decent photo's of ice-cream in mid-summer (apparently professional food stylists use ice-cream substitutes made from play-dough, potato starch and icing, amongst other things..!)
And when it's cooler, the motivation to make ice-cream fades...

But when it was was just too hot to bake last week, and I had to make something for my husband's birthday, an ice-cream cake seemed like the perfect solution.

Of course, on the day of his birthday, the temperature had dropped by 20'C, but this ice-cream is so good that we ate it despite the cold weather (well, it was the only cake on offer - so I wasn't giving anyone any other choice, anyway!)

Amarula and Almond Ice-Cream 

Ingredients:

500ml fresh cream
1x 370g tin condensed milk
4 egg whites
50ml Amarula
1 tbs coffee granules
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g sliced almonds ( or use whole raw almonds sliced lengthways)
80g dark chocolate - finely grated

Place the bowl of a stand mixer into the freezer for 10 minutes to chill, then use this bowl to whip the fresh cream until soft peaks form.

In a clean bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff.

Dissolve the coffee in the Amarula and then mix this into the condensed milk. (You can microwave the Amarula and coffee for a few seconds to get the granules to dissolve). Add in the vanilla.

Stir the condensed milk mixture into the whipped cream.  Mix well.

Fold the egg whites into the cream/ condensed milk mixture. Fold gently but thoroughly - the mixture should be a uniform consistency, with no steaks of egg white visible.
Fold in the nuts and grated chocolate.

Pour into a suitable container ( I used a silicone cake mould, but an a loaf pan works well, too) and freeze. You should stir the ice-cream once before it sets completely (after it's been in the freezer for about an hour), but if you forget this step it will be fine!

Note - it's melting ...it's real! 

Try playing around with the flavours. The original recipe called for brandy and pecan nuts, which is also delicious. I've made a peanut butter and chocolate version. And next I'm going to try rum and raisin.  Yum!

Enjoy!

xxM