Easy Turkish coffee treat

I spend an inordinate amount of time flipping through cookbooks and food magazines.

I salivate over glossy photos of peach pie and slices of toomoist-to-be-true double-decker chocolate cake. I lick my fingers while staring at gorgeous closeups of glazed chicken wings, imagining the tingle of sweet heat on my tongue. All that beautifully styled food draws me in, but then I’ll read the recipe and say, ‘‘no way.’’

What sets me off? A long ingredient list, overly complicated instructions and too much hands-on cooking time for starters.

The one that really rubs me the wrong way: recipes that require special equipment.

That’s probably the reason I don’t make icecream at home. Only recently did I acquire a machine, but the end result came out tasting like cardboard. It’s a treat best left to the pros.

But then came along Diana Henry’s new cookbook, How to

Eat a Peach (Octopus Books). Among the recipes is Turkish coffee icecream, a no-churn icecream that requires only four ingredients – five, if you count water. Active prep time is 10 minutes at the most. The freezer does the rest.

I like this recipe not only because it’s simple to prepare but because it has character, which comes from freshly ground cardamom seeds steeped in espresso.

If you don’t have cardamom pods, skip that step and just add the espresso, but don’t try to fast-track with a packet of ground cardamom; the freshly ground seeds are what enhance the aroma and flavour of this frozen treat.

The crushed black seeds also lend this icecream the speckled look of one made with real vanilla beans.

If a smoother texture is what you’re after, strain them by pouring the espresso through a fine-mesh sieve when adding it to the whipped heavy cream and condensed milk.

‘‘This is not a Turkish recipe, but an icecream inspired by the flavours of the thick coffee you’re served in Istanbul,’’ writes Henry.

To make make half a litre of icecream, mix two tablespoons of instant espresso powder with two tablespoons boiling water and ground seeds from 10 green cardamom pods. Let cool.

Beat 1 1⁄4 cups of heavy cream and 3⁄4 cup of sweetened condensed milk together using an electric hand mixer until the mixture is quite thick, then stir in the cooled spiced coffee.

Scrape the mixture into a container, cover with plastic wrap or a lid, and freeze.

It does becomes very firm, so take it out of the freezer about 20 minutes before you want to serve it.