After studying a Leith’s cookery course alongside her BTEC and a brief stint doing sculpture at Camberwell College of Arts Eloise moved to Edinburgh where she worked in delis and farmer’s markets. After travelling the world on various food adventures she started work at Petersham Nurseries, where she was trained by Skye Gyngell and later Lebanese chef Greg Malouf. Since leaving Petersham she has worked on a number of projects, the latest being pop-up restaurant ‘A Piece on the Side’ at the Cuckoo Club from 4th-7th July.
Check out her simple and sweet baklava ice cream recipe!
Ingredients
For the ice cream:
400ml double cream
200ml whole milk
1 vanilla pod
6 organic free range egg yolks
120g caster sugar
200g Baklava
For the topping:
100g chopped pistachio nuts
100g wild strawberries
1/2 tsp rose water
25g icing sugar
Put the cream, milk and sugar into a heavy based pan over a low heat. Split the vanilla pod in half and add to the cream and milk mixture. Slowly bring to a simmer, remove from the heat. Put the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk. Slowly pour the milk mixture onto the egg yolks, whisking all the time. Put everything back into the saucepan and put on lowest possible heat. Stir gently and continuously for about ten minutes until the mixture starts to thicken. Don’t turn up the heat otherwise it will turn into scrambled eggs. It should thicken enough to lightly coat the back of a wooden spoon. As soon as it thickens, remove from the heat and allow to cool. Once cooled churn the custard in an ice cream maker until softly whipped.
Chop the baklava and mix in 3/4 into the ice cream. When it is frozen, put in a container in the freezer. For the strawberry topping, put the strawberries in a bowl with the icing sugar. Squash the strawberries into the icing sugar and add a the rose water. Remove the ice cream from the freezer half an hour before serving. When plating up, put a few scoops of the ice cream in a bowl, crumble over a little more baklava, chopped pistachios and the rose water strawberries. Finish with a viola flower to serve.