Wattleseed Ice Cream with Rhubarb Sorbet
Stephen Doyle
Something Australian for Christmas, this was inspired by Mark Olive on Adam Liaw’s cooking programme recently. He made a pavlova with wattleseed cream and red native fruits. Those riberries etc. are very hard to find and expensive to source.
Simonn at Lolli Redini’s Restaurant makes a wonderful rhubarb sorbet and as we have abundant rhubarb at our front door. I bought a jar of rosellas in syrup from our Orange Essential Ingredient, as well as the wattle seed. (I’ll spare you the details of baking a wattle seed lamington cake almost 30 years ago now when we lived here in the shed-ahem winery. Obviously we survived my attacking our wattle trees at Christmas time and roasting the harvested seeds.)
To think that I used to help Mum make rosella jam many decades ago in North Queensland. That jam was my favourite, a gorgeous intense red colour with some tartness amongst that sugar.
Sorbets and ice cream together work well. Philip Searle, now retired chef formerly of Vulcan’s at Blackheath, made a fabulous combination of pineapple sorbet and licorice ice cream inspired by the splices of his childhood.
Serve with 2008 Silk Purse. Sadly our 2018 Silk Purse is still too youthful and acidic for this dessert. The coffee flavour of the wattlessed is also too srong and the wrong kind to work with sweet Riesling. This sweet might even need a fortified like a liquer tokay from Rutherglen.
Ingredients
WATTLESEED ICE CREAM
30g wattle seed plumped with 120mls of boiling water (your choice to filter seeds out or not)
1 tin condensed milk
3 eggs
600g of thick Greek yoghurt
600 mls runny cream
1t vanilla paste
RHUBARB SORBET
900g prepared red rhubarb (washed and cut red stalk only)
1 orange, juice and grated rind
syrup drained from a jar of Rosella flowers (optional)
2 T glucose
380g caster sugar
juice of 1 lime
Method
WATTLESEED ICE CREAM
This is my ice cream shortcut instead of a cooked egg yolk custard because I have an ice cream maker. Blend all ingredients and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions.
If you don’t have an ice cream maker, blend all ingredients except the egg whites and runny cream. Whip the cream to soft peaks and also whip the egg whites to stiff peaks with a little fine sugar to help stabilise the mixture. Fold each through the condensed milk and yoghurt mix trying not to lose much air. Freeze in a sizeable lined mould. A 26cm diameter cake tin will hold 3 litres.
Shortcuts
Easier still, buy 1.5 litre of good vanilla ice cream. Soften it enough so you can fold the liquid and soaked wattle seeds through, then refreeze in your desired lined container.
RHUBARB SORBET
Place the prepared and cut rhubarb in a pot and add the orange juice and extra rosella syrup including the water that clings to the rhubarb. Cover and sweat on low to medium heat until the rhubarb is cooked, then cool it. Puree that mixture well including the sugar and glucose and added lime juice. Sieve for a finer texture. Discard the stringy bits. Freeze the sorbet according to instructions of your ice cream maker.
If you are doing this without an ice cream machine, after each hour in the freezer take the mixture out and stir it around to break the larger ice crystals down to smaller sizes. You could even blend the mixture again whilst it is semi-frozen then finalise and pour on to the top of your preferred lined cake mould and the already frozen wattle seed ice cream.
Unmould by upturning your frozen dessert on a small piece of board which will fit into your freezer. (A place mat sufficed with mine and I then covered the dessert entirely in baking paper.)
Just before serving, remove the paper and place the dessert on a suitably chilled serving plate. Decorate with those drained rosella hibiscus flowers, fresh fruit and small lavender flowers. If you have time make some small meringue kisses as well. Using a long hot knife, Serve a slice with some fresh fruit.
A cherry sorbet would also be beautiful but this year with the problematic rains and coolness, the cherry crop looks like it could be late.