This post started life as Jammy Dodger ice cream, but while vanilla ice cream with bits of biscuit and jam sounded OK in theory, in practise it just wasn't all that interesting. But luckily the project then morphed into something altogether more exciting and tasty.
I'm hoping most of you will recognise this:
I know them is Jamborees. Others may know them as Jam Mallows. And apparently in Ireland they are called Mikado (for some inexplicable reason). But the concept is the same - rectangular biscuits, covered in raspberry jam, pink marshmallow, and coconut.
While all the cool kids at school were sneaking off for a cigarette at lunch time, I have fond memories of popping down to the local shop to buy a packet of Jamborees, and promptly scoffing the whole lot. It's a mystery how I wasn't the fattest kid in school. But I digress... it's another classic biscuit that I haven't seen in years, so a perfect candidate for a retro biscuit ice cream.
For the previous entry in the series, I used Angel Delight ice cream mix as the base - and although I considered it a resounding success, this time I wanted proper ice cream... the dense, heavy, creamy stuff. But I'm not the sort of person to do things the hard way, so instead of making a custard base from scratch, I used a mixture of ready-made custard and double cream. It was then time to hijack my wife's favourite kitchen gadget - the ice cream attachment for the mixer.
She really hates it when I use her stuff, and she generally stands over me to make sure that I use it correctly, wash it thoroughly (and at the correct temperature), and then carefully dry it and put it away in the correct place. But it was worth the hassle, because the ice cream came out really well... rich, thick, and just generally the way ice cream should be. In fact, if you have an ice cream maker, I thoroughly recommend the shop-bought custard method.
To make the pink marshmallow, I stirred a few drops of red food colouring into half a jar of marshmallow fluff. I then spooned out a few blobs of the stuff, and coated with coconut. Marshmallow fluff is one of the stickiest substances known to man, and it seems to get everywhere, but eventually I had ten or so nice lumps of coconut coated pink goo.
I took some bog standard shortcake biscuits, broke them into small pieces, and stirred them into the ice cream along with the marshmallow. Finally, I made a raspberry "sauce" from a handful of raspberries and some jam, stirred it into the ice cream, and put the whole lot in the freezer.
The result was another delicious biscuity success. And it tasted even better with some extra raspberry sauce and coconut sprinkled on top.
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Welcome to the first post of my "Retro Biscuit Ice Cream" series, in which I plan to make ice cream based on various biscuity snacks of yesteryear. That may sound like the worst idea you've ever heard, and you may have a valid point - only time will tell.
Anyway, I thought I'd start with one of my absolute favourite childhood treats, the Wagon Wheel. According to Wikipedia they are still available, but I haven't personally seen one for at least 15 years, and they're very much something I associate with a bygone era (i.e. my youth). And speaking of food blasts-from-the-past, I had a special trick up my sleeve for making the ice cream. Remember Angel Delight? Well, I present to you... Angel Delight ice cream mix!
Yes that's right, a sachet of ice cream mix brought to you by those crazy cats at Angel Delight HQ. You just whisk it up with 150ml of milk until it dramatically increases in volume, and put it in the freezer. That's it. No ice cream maker, no removing from the freezer to stir every 15 minutes, none of that malarkey. It sounded too good to be true.
Now for the wagon wheel inspired additions. I needed biscuit, marshmallow, and chocolate. I decided to use digestives (probably my favourite out of all the "bog-standard" biscuits), so I broke up a whole load of them and stirred them into the mixture, along with a few lumps of milk chocolate for good measure. For the marshmallow, several big lumps of my old friend, Marshmallow Fluff - half a jar's worth, in total.
Using the remainder of the finest quality chocolate, I made a chocolate sauce by microwaving it with a little bit of milk. I froze the ice cream for half an hour, and then stirred in the chocolate sauce before returning it to the freezer.
The ice cream is pretty light - as you'd expect from a tub of ice cream that was made from only 150ml (i.e a small glass) of milk. The texture is more reminiscent of a cheap old-school "soft scoop" ice cream, than a nice thick home-made one. But it does taste like ice cream, and is far from unpleasant... and the combination of biscuit pieces, marshmallow, and chocolate worked really well. In fact, I really think that someone should manufacture Wagon Wheel ice cream - they'd definitely have a loyal customer in the shape of Jerry Fishbiscuits.
If you have a favourite retro biscuit you'd like to see turned into an ice cream, leave a comment! (note, crap suggestions like rich tea or custard cream will not be tolerated).
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