Roast Plum Ice Cream

'Tis the season to be jolly, plums are in! There's a fantastic variety of plums around the markets, some I have never heard of before. Orchardists are certainly getting some great tasting fruit this year. There are white centred, yellow centres, beautiful Satsuma's and many other dark red varieties. It is the plums with the dark centres that give this intense colour.

Our local orchard 'Magarey's Orchard' at Coromandel Valley, sells great fruit at very reduced prices. Seconds, blemished or the wrong size for the normal market makes this great news for us locals because we can indulge our palates.

For this ice cream I did not follow any recipe. I took a few ingredients and put them together and this remarkable, delicious, intense flavoured ice cream came through. There is definitely room for experimentation and a little more or a little less of some ingredients will still work out ok. Give it a try - so far it has only had good reviews, so I am tempted to make another batch in the next few days.

Roasted Plum Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 kg approx ripe plums halved and stoned removed
pinch salt
400 ml heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbls honey
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Wash fruit and cut each plum in half. You can either take out the stones now or wait until they are cooked depending on the plum variety and how easy the stones can be removed.  Place them in a large baking tray lined with baking paper. In a pre heated oven 180º fan forced roast the plums for 20 - 30 minutes until soft.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Place the cooled plums in a blend or using a hand held stick blender, puree the plums.  

Place a sieve on top of a large bowl and sieve the plums, discarding the pulp. In a small saucepan add honey, cream, vanilla extract and sugar and stir over a low heat until sugar has melted.

Cool mixture then add to the sieved plums.

Add 1 cup of milk to the plums and mix well. Place in the fridge for 3 -4 hours or overnight to cool completely. Adding more milk and cream will give you a much lighter colour. But I just love the colour as it is.

Churn the plums in your ice cream machine (according to manufacturer's recommendations). You can serve immediately or place in a suitable container and freeze.