Recipe: Heatwave causing ice cream cravings? Make your own

“It feels like you are drinking a dessert. So what better way to enhance it by actually making it into one?” Hannah Gregory, Velvet’s resident recipe writer, shares her latest stroke of culinary genius: turning sweet, nutty, vanilla-y horchata into ice cream

Horchata, a drink as old as time but not very familiar on our Great British soil. A brief history lesson if I may. A plant-based concoction with different iterations all around the globe but with a shared starting point - the soaking of a grain, seed or nut in water which is then blended (or most likely pounded way back when) then flavoured with herbs and spices indigenous to the locale - it is thought that the drink started its humble beginnings in West Africa with the use of tiger nuts and during the 11th century made its way across the Med to Portugal and Spain.

From here it was destined for distant lands and taken to the New World where it became (and remains) a very popular drink throughout South and Central America. Tiger nuts were replaced with melon seeds or uncooked white rice and vanilla and canela (cinnamon) were added for flavour.

As with all historic recipes, there are a hundred different versions dependent on location, heritage and preference but the fundamentals of a good Mexican horchata remain the same - soak the rice, blend it up real good, add flavour. As always, they were doing clever things with food and drink way before us and this plant-based drink, laced with potassium, magnesium and folic acid from the unprocessed rice, was not only delicious but also incredibly nutritious.

We’re not here for nutrition, though, we’re here for gluttony. The flavour profile of rice pudding is prevalent throughout the drink: the nutty rice that thickens the liquid, laced with warming cinnamon and vanilla - it feels like you are drinking a dessert. So what better way to enhance it by actually making it into a dessert?

By replacing the water with milk and using an infused cream to add, well, creaminess, the perfect base of an ice cream is formed; all that is left to do is combine with a custard base and chuck it in an ice cream machine. Yes, I know, you do need an ice cream machine for this recipe but I’ll let you into a little secret - invest in an ice cream machine now and you can make ice cream everyday for the rest of your life and be a very happy camper!

I like to top mine with cacao nibs and agave as a further nod to the Mexican lands that inspired the dessert.

Horchata Ice Cream
Serves: 6

What you need:

● 1 litre whole milk

● 2 cinnamon sticks

● 150g white caster sugar

● 250g long grain white rice

● 300ml double cream

● 4 large egg yolks

● Pinch of ground cinnamon

How you do it:

1. In a medium pan toast the rice and cinnamon until fragrant, about 3 minutes.

2. In a saucepan combine the milk, cinnamon stick and 50g of sugar. Stir gently until the sugar dissolves, heat until just steaming then remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

3. Once cool add the rice, then leave the mixture to steep overnight in the fridge.

4. The next day, blitz the mixture in a powerful blender or nutribullet until smooth. Pass the mix through a sieve a couple of times to get rid of any cinnamon lumps and bumps.

5. Add the strained mixture to a saucepan. Heat very gently and stir continuously until warm. The starch from the rice will begin to coagulate which is why it is so important to keep stirring. Bites of gelatinous rice throughout your ice cream are the best bit but huge chunks of solids are not a vibe.

6. Place the cream in a bowl.

7. Whisk together the remaining sugar, cinnamon and egg yolks until pale and fluffy.

8. Temper the eggs by slowly adding the warm rice liquid to the whisked egg mixture. Keep whisking constantly and then once all combined, return to the pan and place back on the heat, stirring all the time.

9. When the mix has thickened and coats the back of a spoon and reads 74c on a digital thermometer, add the mixture to the cream.

10. Transfer to a fridge and allow to sit for 4 hours.

11. Add the refrigerated ice cream mix to an ice cream machine and churn until thick and creamy.

A former BBC MasterChef quarter finalist, Hannah is the brains behind TACOR, the neighbourhood taqueria in Bury St Edmunds, and WanderSups, a supper club, pop-up and private chef service. Her ethos is simple: to “serve meals created with love, inspired by journeys around the world, dished up on home turf”. To find out more follow @WanderSups and/or @tacor_taqueria.