Lemon Curd Ice-Cream

I might have mentioned this before, but I love ice-cream.One of the things that I would probably miss about the UK when I leave for good is the regular offers on Haagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, and other premium brands of the frozen confectionery. It is a pity though, that the Sainsbury's Basics range offers few products that would give these brands a run for their money, largely due to the cheap ingredients they use to keep things cheap. The only exception would be the Basics Vanilla & Choc Cones, whose ingredients list more closely resembles something you would find from the more upmarket equivalents. This still leaves a gap in the Basics product line for good ice cream sold in tubs though, and it seems that one has no other choice but to make it from scratch.

Amongst other sources, I regularly scour the Internet for recipes, looking through culinary blogs to find something that would fit the demanding and unique circumstances that I have to work within. I was reading through thecattylife's ice cream recipe for cookies and cream, when I chanced upon one of the comments made on that post. The comment mentioned a recipe she came across on the MoneySavingExpert forums which merely involves a tin of Basics custard, a jar of Basics lemon curd, and an ice-cream maker.


A brief sanity check validated the recipe: most of the ice-cream recipes on the Internet involved making some form of custard before freezing the contents, so why not use ready-made custard? I don't have an ice-cream maker, but a quick Google search turned up this excellent article written by David Lebovitz showing how to make ice-cream without using a machine. Excited, I made a quick trip to Sainsbury's to pick up the ingredients.

Apparently, lemon curd has been quite popular as a form of dessert spread through the ages in both the UK, with the States catching on through lemon-meringue pie. To be honest, I have not come across lemon curd ice-cream during my various trips taken around the country during the warmer parts of the year, but would most certainly look for it specifically now.

The mixture seems pretty resilient to freezing. I was not disciplined enough to check on it every 30 minutes as prescribed by Lebovitz, only giving it a good whisk once before tumbling into bed. When I checked on it the next morning, the texture still resembled some form of ice-cream.

It tasted pretty strange though prior to freezing, somewhat like Strepsils, although the strangeness was a lot more toned down after freezing. I attribute this to the lemon curd used. Perhaps I could explore using other ingredients to make Basics ice-cream though, like adding rum-soaked raisins to Basics custard before freezing. It's certainly an avenue worth exploring!

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Lemon Curd	£0.22	411g	+£0.57	Less artificial taste?