Passion fruit ice cream

Right after my last passion fruit post, I was craving for more passion fruit straight away. In fact, when I was making those passion fruit tarts, I was already planning for the next passion fruit dessert - passion fruit ice cream. I was planning to find fresh passion fruit from the supermart so that I get the lovely passion fruit seeds in my ice cream too. Alas, whenever you're specifically searching for an item, it will invariably bound to be not available at that very moment. Other times, it will just be there in the supermart, mocking and tempting you. Anyone feels the same way?

Passion fruits from a lovely girlfriend's vine makes...

...a super delicious fruity passion fruit ice cream!

THEN i suddenly remembered that I had a girlfriend who has a passion fruit tree (okay, technically, it's a vine) in her hse! We were meeting up the next day for brunch, so i asked her if i can get some since that last time I went her place, her mom offered and said to come and take as much as I liked. And girlfriend said, sure, just come straight over! *jumps jumps jumps* Don't you just love friends like that? Of course, I did bring over some of my passion fruit tarts to share since they were so kind to offer me those passion fruits. ^^

I used a mix of fresh passion fruit juice and frozen passion fruit puree to make the ice cream. Since I was using the fresh fruits for the seeds, I might as well not waste the lovely juice that comes along with it. Rights? Nothing beats fresh stuff anyways.

The final result? Oh my god. The recipe yielded a really smooth and tart ice cream that I must say tops the list of my favourite home made ice creams! Even after a week, when I scooped the ice cream with an ice cream scoop, it came out easily (unlike other ice creams, which might have already turned rock hard and will be hard to scoop). And the flavour. Oh the flavour! I added an extra tablespoon of sugar to try to tempt my family into eating it cos they are not really big fans of sour treats (read - passion fruit, lemons). I did not add significantly more sugar cos I personally like passion fruit...and my compromise can only go that far. After trying it, they said it was just too sour, oh well, more for me then. ^^

I really like how the orange zest gave the ice cream a fresh perky taste, but I think I was a little heavy handed with the zest. It shone too much, so perhaps, the next time (and yes there will be a next time for sure), I would use the zest of half an orange.

I made a passion fruit ice cream float, with some extra fresh passion fruit juice that I had, added some water and sugar, a few chunks of ice, and a generous scoop of passion fruit ice cream. It was a total luxurious treat for myself.

I also gave some to Evan to try when she was here for our baking session, and she loved it too! Hooray for fellow sour fruit lovers. (:

Passion fruit ice cream float

Passion fruit ice cream (adapted from David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop")

1/2 cup passion fruit puree (I used a mix of fresh and frozen)

1 cup heavy cream

6 tbsp (90ml) whole milk

8 tbsp sugar (I added 9, in future I will reduce to the original 8)

pinch of salt

3 large egg yolks

grated zest of one orange (optional)

1 tbsp (or slightly more) passion fruit seeds (optional)

Mix together passion fruit puree and 1/2 cup cream in a large bowl. Set a strainer over the bowl.

Heat milk, sugar, salt and remaining cream till warm. In separate bowl, whisk yolks, slowly pour warm mixture into yolks, whisking constantly. Scrape the warmed yolks mixture back into the saucepan.

Over med heat, whisk the mixture constantly, cooking till the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Pour the custard through the strainer. Stir well to combine custard, passion fruit puree and cream. Add the grated orange zest if using, stir till cool over ice bath.

Chill in fridge overnight, then churn in ice cream maker for about 20 minutes (depending on your ice cream machine). Add passion fruit seeds to the custard at the last 5 minutes mark of churning. Transfer to container and store in freezer.