And then it was winter

There is, in my favourite book in the world, a delicious description on the arrival of spring on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Spring had come once more to Green Gables—the beautiful capricious, reluctant Canadian spring, lingering along through April and May in a succession of sweet, fresh, chilly days, with pink sunsets and miracles of resurrection and growth. 

When I first read this description, half a century ago as an eight year old, the words "capricious" and "chilly" floored me, spring in Australia being an overt, simmering and flower-blustering season. Yet the description might well fit the arrival of winter in eastern temperate Australia.

Sunrises are pink with sweet, fresh and chilly days ...

Days can be chilly but usually we have a window of time where the sun streams down and the wind drops and in a sheltered spot it can be delightfully warm. At lunchtime the other day the sky was studded with these tiny puttery clouds and, in the time it took to fetch my camera and snap a shot ...

said puttery clouds were being blown apart by high winds leaving wind streaks on the sky.

Elliott

Some time back Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial was kind enough to bequeath me some of her dried sourdough starter from Priscilla, her own starter. I was a little slow to get mine going but he – yes, it’s a son – has been rehydrated and his name is Elliott. 

Priscilla is named for the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert so Celia requests that descendant sourdough is named from the same source. This of course raises endless possibilities – name for a character, an actor or anyone/anything associated with the film. 

A quick visit to the Priscilla Wiki provided me with a name in the very first line. Priscilla was written and directed by Stephan Elliott, his surname being my maiden name double 'l' and double 't' even!) gave me the name for my starter.

Rehydrating Elliott was deceptively simple, following Celia’s instructions he was fed and watered at three intervals on the first day. As you can see he responded promptly, as I’m sure all Priscilla’s progeny do, and he has been fed regularly and continues to bubble and froth. 

Talking with Elliott made me realise that my previous sourdough starter didn’t have a name so, in an effort to redress that, I have belatedly named her Essie. I don't know if it's the name or the company but Essie is coming along nicely too. 

Have a look at Celia’s sourdough tutorial here or simply type sourdough in the search box at her blog. I find Celia’s recipes reliable and straightforward as I’m sure you will too.

I plan to work through Celia's collection of sourdough recipes variously using Elliott or Essie to start the loaf maybe, even in time, using a hybrid of the two.

Top of the morning to you

and here's a smile to start your day.

Notes and links on making ice cream

Lisa asked if honey could be used as a substitute for sugar and I think in most cases it can. I'd suggest heating the honey with the fruit at the end of the fruit's cooking time. Heidi at 101 Cookbooks has some delightful ice cream recipes that use honey.

Quinn expressed an interest in making ice cream but said she doesn't have an ice cream machine, Quinn, don't let this stop you! For many years I made ice cream by the old tried and true method of scraping it, the edges start setting first so the idea is that you use a fork to break up the ice crystals that form which gives the ice cream a better texture. This scraping is done hourly for the setting time which is about three or four hours. David Lebovitz shows you how he does it here.

This video on You Tube is quite good for making ice cream without an ice cream maker.

Apricot ice cream

It may be my middle aged digestion but I find that I'm no longer thrilled by a rich cream  or egg-custard based ice cream. I find they sit heavily, have a less plesant mouth feel and, all in all, are too rich and cloying.

I've had success with ice creams such as this one which include yoghurt but, there is no getting away from it, those with yoghurt tend toward the frozen yoghurt category which in itself is not a bad thing but is also not always exactly what I'm looking for. I keep working on refining the non-rich, non-cloying but still-ice cream ice cream and I had considerable success with this a while back.

Anna's recipes for ice cream are very reliable and I found the idea of apricot ice cream very appealing. When I first saw the "half and half" mentioned I must admit that I sighed a little because when you Google half and half you get such a range of definitions, some don't mention milk fat, some describe the cream fat content as 45% and some describe it as lower. I have decided for my purposes to define half and half as what we Australians call full cream milk and single (pouring) cream each element making up half of the total.

Ingredients:
2.5 cups of dried aprcots, chopped
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
Juice of half a lime
Few drops of almond essence
1.5 cups of half and half

Method:
Simmer the fruit in the water until it has softened.

Add the half cup of sugar, stir and take off the heat

Cool slightly.
Puree in the blender, add lime juice and almond essence, blitz briefly.
Stir through the cup and a half of half and half.

I then chilled the mixture for an hour before putting it into the ice cream maker.

Thoughts:

• Cooking the fruit was a good idea, I am going to do this for ice cream in future even when using frozen berries. The cooked fruit seems to freeze better and raw can be added as a garnish.
• Adding the sugar after coking the fruit worked well, I kept in on the low heat only long enough for the sugar to dissolve.
• The half and half gives a good texture, it's smooth and creamy without the excessive richness of other methods. The product was also easy to scoop.
• Any fruit could be substituted here. The dried apricots were a tad chewy so, if using dried fruit, you might cook it on low for a good twenty minutes.
• This recipe could be doubled quite easily but do consider the size of your ice cream machine.