Whilst there are many complicated ice-cream recipes which require expensive machines or much whipping and churning you will be pleased to know that this is not one of them.
It involved three simple ingredients and takes about fifteen minutes to make (excluding freezing time).
The first ingredient is Tulips.
These must be from your garden (if unsprayed) or bought organically. For eating do not buy from a supermarket, florist, garage or garden centre. This is not me trying to drum up business but a proven fact that the vast majority of cut flowers are fed or sprayed with a cocktail of pesticides and fungicides in order to prolong their shelf life. These chemical do the plants no visible harm but are most definitely not designed for human consumption and could make you very ill indeed.
Ingredients
8 tulips
500 grammes of frozen summer fruits (I used 400 grms of raspberries & 100 grammes of blackcurrants which I froze in the summer).
A 397grm tin of condensed milk (Just an aside - is there a reason they don't round it up to 400grms?)
Allow the fruit to defrost ever so slightly and then blitz with a hand blender to break up into a frozen slushy consistency. If you worry about these things (or are including fruit with a lot of big pips) then push through a coarse sieve at this stage to remove the worst. I generally do, as my own frozen fruit from the garden seems to usually include the odd leaf and stick as well for some reason!
Pour in the condensed milk and mix quickly. Pop in a covered freezer proof dish and freeze for approximately one hour. After this time, do give it a quick stir but given that the fruit was already partially frozen at the start of the process and the mixture doesn't use fresh cream then there isn't the issue of big ice crystals forming at the sides of the dish to worry about and you end up with a smooth ice-cream.
You should only need to remove this from the freezer for about 10 minutes before serving. Use a sharp knife to remove the stamens and carpel of the tulip (i.e. the inside bits which aren't petals) and cut the outer stem level with the base of the petals. What you should be left with is a ring of petals 'just' held together at the base with a slither of green stem. Tulip petals are quite stiff and in an ideal world you'd like to be able to pull on a petal and have it detach from the base so you can use it to scoop up ice-cream.
Hold the petals open and fill the 'bowl' with the ice-cream mixture. Serve at once with a delicious floral dessert wine. You will be amazed at how sweet tulip petals taste.
A note of caution…..
Whilst the general opinion is that all parts of tulips are edible, there is controversy about eating the tulip bulbs and care and research should be taken if you want to eat more than just the petals. (More information can be found at http://www.eattheweeds.com/tulips-famine-food-appetizer-assistant-2/. )
I should also add that in rare cases (and like with other foods) some people are allergic to tulips. So if in doubt, nibble a little bit of the petals, spit it out and wait for 30 minutes or so to see you develop any symptoms such as flushing, dizziness, rashes or feeling sick in which case avoid.
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