This is quite a rich ice cream and a dessert in itself. The apple puree is really deep in flavour and if cooked down a little more and thickened it would make a beautiful apple ‘butter-come-jam’ for topping toast and croissants! Goes really well with some simple hazelnut and vanilla shortbread.
- 1 can condensed milk (alternatively make a custard base but this recipe requires no churning)
- 300ml single cream
- 4 large crunchy apples
- 100g soft brown sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp mixed spice and ground ginger
- Pinch of nutmeg
- 125ml water
- 50g oats
- 50g plain flour
- 50g soft brown sugar
- 60g chilled, cubed unsalted butter
- Start with the spiced apple puree. Core and chop 3 of the apples into chunky slices. Add to a saucepan with the water and bring to the boil. Then simmer gently until the apples break down and look a bit like apple sauce.
- Add the sugar and spices to the hot apples and mix. Transfer to a blender and puree. Have a taste, add more sugar to your liking depending on how sweet your apples were, or lemon juice for a bit of sharpness. Remember when you add purees to ice cream they should always be a little bit on the sweet side as that way they will taste fine when frozen.
- Leave to cool.
- Mix the crumble ingredients together until you have chunky breadcrumb-like texture. Transfer to a lined baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes in a preheated 170°C oven keeping an eye on it. Don’t worry as the mixture will most likely melt into a big slab. When its golden brown leave it to cool and crisp and then you can crumble it into pieces.
- Cube the remaining apple into small dice and saute in a little butter to soften. Leave to cool.
- Mix the condensed milk and the cream (or alternatively for a proper ice cream make a custard base. The benefit of the condensed milk is there is no need for any churning) and add the apple puree. Keep some reserved if you want to ripple some through the cream before freezing.
- Scatter some crumble and some of the cubed apple pieces into your container of choice and top with some of the mixture. If you want to ripple some puree through, do this now. Scatter with more crumble and apple pieces and repeat. Finish with a scattering of crunchy topping. Freeze until set (it will have a soft scoop texture) and enjoy!
