Easter Ice Cream - With Chocolate, Nuts & Honey

Every Easter I'm aware that many of my readers will be thinking of doing some home entertaining or, at the least, a little home cooking. So Easter recipes are high on the agenda for Internet searches around this time of year - and I don't want to disappoint anyone who is looking for ideas!

Last Easter I suggested a rich white chocolate ice cream recipe. Great for using up any white chocolate easter eggs you might have left over. The same applies to milk chocolate too - here is my chocolate ice cream recipe using real milk chocolate. So if your family gets a lot of chocolate this Easter, remember they don't have to eat it all at once - make some ice cream with it or, indeed, keep some of the chocolate until after the holidays and then make ice cream with it. After all, the 'best before' date on chocolate is usually pretty good. In fact I met a chocolatier a couple of years ago who told me that, generally speaking, chocolate can be good for up to as long as a year after it's been made. Even so, you should always check the manufacturer's date on the packaging.

However, I digress .... back to Easter ice cream!

This Easter I'm going to suggest 2 ice cream recipes:

Something 'nutty' - my crunchy pecan & maple syrup ice cream recipe. The reason? It has proven to be one of the most popular with people I know which makes it a pretty good bet for when you have visitors over the holidays.

Something 'sweet' - my honey ice cream recipe. The reason? Most people like honey. It also gives a great texture to the ice cream and, funnily enough, is an ice cream flavor that many people have yet to try. So the reaction to be offered it is usually one of surprise and interest.

Honey is always great to have in your kitchen at Easter anyway - it's delicious served on hot cross buns or scones!

Indeed, if you serve honey in any shape or form over Easter, you might like to share with your guests a few, fascinating facts about the wonderful honey bee. The link I've given is to a great BBC web page - nothing too scientfic or overbearing, just some great information.

Happy Easter ice cream making!

Festive Spicy Ice Cream

During the Christmas holidays many of us meet up with friends and family that we don't see very often throughout the rest of the year. So I think it's a great time to give people a treat. Cooking at home for people is a real pleasure - sure it's hard work too but it's like anything, the more positive the energy you put into it, the better the result. With food of any kind this makes the best possible recipe!

So how about making some spicy ice cream for your guests? Most are not likely to have tried this before but, given that it's Christmas, they're probably in party mood and would really relish trying something a little different - especially if the host has gone to the trouble of making a homemade treat.

My idea? Honey with Cinammon and Cloves Ice Cream. Great, simple ingredients - honey, milk, sugar, eggs and cream with the added spice of cloves and cinammon. It's not the quickest ice cream recipe because you need to allow the spices to infuse in the milk (at least an hour or even overnight if you have time) but it's the richness of the spices that makes this ice cream special. It's probably only at Christmas, or at least in winter time, that you'll think of making and eating such an ice cream in fact ... but that's what makes ice cream such a fantastic food - you can vary the ingredients according to the seasons.

Follow the link above to find the full recipe instructions.

I hope you enjoy this festive, spicy ice!