An ice cream, for James.
Every birthday, I ask James what cake he would like, already knowing his answer. Carrot cake, always, always, always.
In the summer, I bought the Ice Cream Attachment for my KitchenAid with great plans of making multiple tubs of multiple flavours of ice cream – tradwife-vibes. But alas, I am not, and so it never happened.
It is now autumn, and it is finally out of its box! And my great plans of ice-cream-goddess are back on. For one recipe only.
James’ birthday has been and gone, but carrots are still in season. And so, as an ode to him, I created a recipe that combines two of his greatest loves – carrot cake and ice cream.
This ice cream begins as a classic ice cream base, with added cream cheese and lemon juice, to give it that twang of tartness found within a cream cheese frosting. The carrot cake is cooled and added in big generous chunks when the ice cream has almost set, to keep the crumb intact.
It’s glorious. And tastes exactly as good as you think it will.
CARROT CAKE ICE CREAM
This recipe is an ode to James. He loves his ice cream, he loves his carrot cake. This combines the two! It tastes exactly as good as you think it will.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 200 g caster sugar
- 125 g full-fat cream cheese
- 175 ml full-fat milk
- 350 ml double cream
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 1 large egg
- juice of 1/2 lemon
Carrot Cake
- 135 ml neutral oil sunflower, vegetable or groundnut
- 3 medium eggs
- 165 g light brown soft sugar
- 180 g carrot grated
- zest of 1 orange
- 165 g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 60 g walnuts or pecan nuts chopped
Instructions
Method
-
Preheat the oven to 160°C (fan-assisted) and line a regular cake tin with parchment paper.
-
Start by making the carrot cake. Combine the sunflower oil, eggs, light brown soft sugar, grated carrot, and orange zest in a jug. In a mixing bowl, sift the self-raising flour, bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice, ginger and cinnamon. Gently fold the wet ingredients through the dry ingredients to combine, and stir through the nuts, too. Pour the mixture into your lined baking tin, and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Let the cake cool fully (you can put it in the fridge, if you need).
-
Whilst the cake is cooling, you can start on the ice cream. Whisk together the sugar, cream cheese, vanilla bean paste and egg in a mixing bowl, until fully combined.
-
Next, warm milk and cream in a large saucepan set over low-medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is just about to boil. As soon as you see the first bubbles appear around the edge of the pan, remove it from the heat and pour it *very* slowly into the cream cheese mixture, whisking ferociously as you do. Return the mixture back into the pan, set it over a low heat, and whisk constantly. Cook for 4-6 minutes, or until the ice cream base easily coats the back of a spoon. Let the mixture cool completely.
-
Add the lemon juice to the cooled ice cream base and whisk until smooth and combined. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker (whichever you have – have a look at its instructions first!), and churn until firm and frozen. Tear chunks of the cooled carrot cake into your ice cream maker (as many or as few as you like) and churn them gently through the frozen ice cream. Eat straight away, or spoon into a container and freeze for later. It's nice to serve it with some leftover carrot cake crumbs, too.
If you love these winter spices, then you’ll also enjoy my Butternut Spice Muffin recipe. Or, if you’re looking for more recipe inspiration, check out my Instagram or Substack.
Leave a Reply