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Top tips for a praline ice cream and chocolate ganache sauce

Top tips for the ice cream custard

Make the custard
Add milk to a (preferably heavy-based) pot and scald it (meaning ‘bring it to the boil’). Hot
milk tends to stick to the bottom of a pot and burn. To prevent this from happening, keep a
heatproof whisk in the pot and stir occasionally.

Separate the eggs and save the whites
Egg whites have a myriad of uses in the kitchen. Use them to whip up an omelette or soufflé,
or beat them up with sugar to make decadent meringues.

Whisk the yolks and sugar together until you achieve the ribbon stage
As you beat the yolks and sugar together, the mixture will gradually start to whiten and fluff
up. What you’re after, though, is ‘the ribbon stage’. To test this out, lift some of the mixture
up with your whisk and hold it above the bowl. If the mixture falls from the whisk with a
ribbon-like consistency, you know you’re good to go.

Slowly pour the hot milk into the egg and sugar mixture
This prevents the egg from over-heating and cooking. Once you’ve added all the milk, give it
a good mix with a spatula or whisk to make sure that you’ve detached all the sugar and egg
mixture from the sides of the bowl.

Ditch the double boiler for a plain ol’ pot
To save valuable preparation time, cook the ice cream custard directly over the heat in a pot.

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