Black Sesame Ice Cream Recipe
By Nicola Lando
-
30 minutes prep time
-
15 minutes cook time
-
Intermediate
Black sesame seeds are popular throughout Asia both in savoury and sweet dishes. For this black sesame ice cream recipe we toasted black sesame seeds in a pan before blending them into a thick, rich paste. Stirred into a simple, creamy ice cream base before freezing, this black sesame paste gives the ice cream a sophisticated, muted grey colour and delectable nutty intensity.
Serve the ice cream topped with a sprinkle of sesame seeds, or for the perfect contrast of textures have a go at our sesame seed brittle recipe. The dough is rolled out very thinly between two sheets of parchment paper before baking to create a delicate but satisfying snap.
For the black sesame ice cream Serves: 6
- 75g black sesame seeds
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 3g ice cream stabiliser
- 100g caster sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- 375ml milk
- 125ml double cream
- 1/2 to 1 tsp fine sea salt
For the sesame seed brittle
- 25g butter
- 1 tsp orange juice
- Pinch of fine sea salt
- 10g corn syrup or glucose
- 15g flour
- 35g icing sugar
- 15g black sesame seeds
- 15g white sesame seeds
To make the black sesame ice cream
- Roasted the black sesame seeds in a pan on a medium heat for 5 minutes, being careful not to burn them.
- Transfer the seeds to a food processor and whizz until it starts to resemble a thick paste (this can take 10 minutes or more, depending on the strength of the food processor).
- Add the sesame oil and whizz for a further 10 minutes until the paste is very fine and runny enough to pour. Set aside.
- Mix together the ice cream stabilizer and sugar, and add to the egg yolks. Whisk until pale and fluffy.
- Heat the milk until just boiling. Leave to cool briefly, and then slowly pour over the sugar and egg yolk mixture, whilst the whisk is still running. Pouring slowly is important, so that the surface of the eggs don’t overheat and scramble.
- Return the egg yolk, sugar, and milk mixture back to the pan, and heat gently whilst stirring until the temperature reaches around 70°C, or the liquid coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat, and whisk in the cream and black sesame paste. Taste, and adjust salt as necessary.
- Leave to cool, and then refrigerate until cold. Churn in an ice-cream maker, or freeze, stirring every hour until it solidifies – around 4-6 hours. Garnish with a shard of sesame seed brittle to serve.
To make the sesame seed brittle
- Melt the butter in a pan over a low heat.
- Add the orange juice, salt and corn syrup and stir to combine.
- Sieve together the flour and icing sugar. Mix in the white and black sesame seeds.
- Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients to form a thick paste. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°C, Fan.
- Cover a baking tray with baking parchment.
- Use a rolling pin to roll the paste out sandwiched between the baking parchment and a layer of cling film. Roll to 1mm thickness.
- Bake for 5-7 minutes until golden but not burnt.
- Remove from the oven and immediately score the brittle using a sharp knife or pizza wheel. Alternatively, leave to cool and snap using hands.
About the author
Nicola is co-founder and CEO at Sous Chef. She has worked in food for over ten years.
Nicola first explored cooking as a career when training at Leiths, before spending the next decade in Finance. However... after a stage as a chef at a London Michelin-starred restaurant, Nicola saw the incredible ingredients available only to chefs. And wanted access to them herself. So Sous Chef was born.
Today, Nicola is ingredients buyer and a recipe writer at Sous Chef. She frequently travels internationally to food fairs, and to meet producers. Her cookbook library is vast, and her knowledge of the storecupboard is unrivalled. She tastes thousands of ingredients every year, to select only the best to stock at Sous Chef.
Nicola shares her knowledge of ingredients and writes recipes to showcase those products. Learning from Sous Chef's suppliers and her travels, Nicola writes many of the recipes on the Sous Chef website. Nicola's recipes are big on flavour, where the ingredients truly shine (although that's from someone who cooks for hours each day - so they're rarely tray-bakes!).
