Now that the hot days of the year are edging closer, the many artisan ice cream maker’s shops that have been making a name for themselves around town during the last couple of delicious summers are opening up for the season one by one. While some of these Heroes of Summer have come up with specialities and signature yummies that you’d wish you could live on, all of their shops and cafés have one huge flaw: they’re shops. Tiny ones, most of the time, in remote’ish places, with exponentially growing lines in front as soon as the first ray of sun comes out.

They don’t magically move all across town into your kitchen whenever you feel like a blob of their finest. A curse and yet a blessing all things shape-related considered~ So, until some evil genius comes up with an Ice Cream Teleportation Device, all that’s left to do for those of us not inclined to stock up on the usual suspects in our supermarkets ice cream coolers, that just don’t do it once you’ve been spoiled by real ice cream or gelato, is to stock up on the good stuff we can make ourselves, with or without an ice cream maker with as many or as few ingredients as we fancy. Today’s candidate on the guilty pleasure list – <insert conspiratorial whisper here> best sneaked around midnight when nobody’s watching or having the nerve to demand a share and the part of your brain usually busy counting calories has zonked out for the day – is a number fruity enough to provide the necessary refreshment on even the hottest of days and mmmhcreamy! enough to soothe those pesky chocolate cravings even the hottest of days can’t stifle. Once more, the Chef’s Guild of Tyria has sent me into a sweets-producing rampage through my kitchen with their uncanny knack to spoon-feed my usually dormant sweets-monster into full awareness with just the right ideas… The truly yumtastic combination of raspberries and peaches, irresistible to me and my sweets-monster, isn’t exactly a new face in our freezer, as you can see here in my Raspberry & Peach Granita Recipe, but this time around, a quick browse across the Sweets section on the Tyrian Menu came to a screeching halt on this one:

Yep, when it comes to ice creams, the Tyrian Chef’s Guild always takes the award for Best Inspirational Bell Ringing. Once I managed to pull myself together and shake off the effects of that particular episode of Pawlowian reflexes, I came up with this~

Peach & Raspberry Swirl Gelato
300g Ripe Peaches, skinned and pitted
Alt: 300g Tinned Peaches, preserved in their own juice – make sure to
a) take High-Quality ones, sometimes the canned stuff tastes off in a metallic or cleaning-detergent sort of way
b) rinse and pat them dry as thoroughly as possible since any additional sugar or water will produce ice crystals impeding on the gelato’s “creamy” attributes
1 Pinch of Salt
1 Tsp of Golden Honey
400g Sugared Condensed Milk – I called this one a “guilty pleasure”, right? Even the most shape- or health-conscious people need one of those once in a while. We call it “motivation” if anyone asks.
350g Double Cream – I did mention to switch off, trick or euthanize your calory-center, right?
2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Ripe Necktarines, finely diced
200g Raspberries
Opt: Brown Sugar
1 Splash of Lemon Juice

As usual with ice cream’ish yummies coming out of my kitchen, it doesn’t require an ice cream maker~! A stick-blender and an electrical whisk – or a minion with strong, tireless arms – will be enough in the kitchen doo-hickey department.
Before you get to work, make sure both the cream and the condensed milk are thoroughly chilled, this will make the process of frothing them up that much easier. The same goes for the peaches, raspberries and nectarines – if you’d combine components of varying temperatures, the ice cream would take longer to freeze which might just give it enough time to split a little and set into a cream-covered sorbet – not a bad or spoiled dish per se, just not what you’re aiming for. Keep everything chilled while you’re not working with that particular component and you’ll be golden. Oh, if the nectarine bits can catch about 15 mins of quality freezer-time before their scene is up, they won’t disappear into the depths of your ice cream container later on either.

1) First off, pop the peaches into a stick-blender friendly container, drizzle them with the honey and add the salt.
2) Whizz them into a smooth purée and place the container in the fridge for the time being.
3) Have a test-bite of your raspberry stock and decide whether they’re ripe or if they might need a brown-sugary lift to perfection. They’ll need the lemon juice to shine in a frozen state, so leaving that out isn’t an option – if they’re a bit too tart on their own, you’ll need the sugar.
4) If you’re going with the sugar, dissolve it in the lemon juice at this point and proceed from there.
5) If not, simply place the un-sugared lemon juice and the raspberries in another stick-blender friendly container and work them into a smooth purée as well.
6) In case you want it extra-smooth, move the purée through a fine sieve with a rubber spatula to get rid of any remaining seeds.
7) Hide that container in the fridge as well and move on to the last component.
8) Place the vanilla extract, cream and milk in a large and wide mixing bowl.
9) Set the speed of your electrical whisking-gizmo to high and beat the mixture until soft peaks start to stand at attention when you pull out the whisks.
10) This will take a while longer than it would normally take for cream to thicken up, so don’t start worrying too soon, it will happen at some point in the near future~

11) Once you’re satisfied with the voluminous foam in your bowl, ditch the whisks, carefully pour in the peach mixture near the rims of the bowl and very gently fold both components into eachother with the help of a rubber spatula and a healthy amount of patience.
13) As soon as the cream and the fruit purée have formed an even, silky and pale-yellow alliance, fold in the nectarine dice and pour the mixture into a freezer-proof container or cake/bread loaf tin.
14) If the nectarines had the chance to partially freeze, they won’t just refrain from sinking though the mixture to the bottom of the tin, they’ll also kick-start the freezing process by significantly chilling the immediate area around them.
15) Carefully drizzle or spoon the raspberry purée on top of the glossy foam from a low height and “swirl” it into the peach mixture with a dessert spoon, fork or wooden skewer in a slow and dragging whisking motion.
16) If you want to doll it up, hold back on a bit of the berry purée and, once the rest is taken care of, paint lines on the surface of the slowly setting ice cream with it before running them through with a toothpick or skewer for a showy effect~
17) Cover the gelato with a double-layer or clingfilm and pop it into the freezer for at least 8 hours. If you prep it in the morning or early afternoon, it’ll most definitely be ready at midnight…
18) Take the tin out of the freezer about 10 min before serving for maximum creaminess and get a bunch of the fruit contained in it ready for decorative measures.

Enjoy~!

♥