Ice cream, you scream

It’s the perfect summer dessert that literally melts in your mouth, and whether you have an ice-cream maker in the house or not, Rachel Allen has some great recipes for you to try

Ice cream is, perhaps, the perfect summer dessert: a cooling, sweet mouthful that literally melts in your mouth. Of course, it needs to be frozen, which makes it a host’s perfect end to a meal, as it can be made weeks in advance and then whipped out of the freezer at the last minute.

There are a million different ice-cream flavours and combinations, and once you have the basic rules nailed, you can let your palate and imagination go wild, and create the ice cream of your dreams.

There are two main types of ice cream. There’s the custard-base ice cream, which involves making a creme anglaise custard with your chosen flavouring; and then there is bombe-method ice cream, which is an aerated mousse mixture. The latter, because of its lightness, doesn’t require the use of an ice-cream machine, but the custard-base ice cream, which is particularly smooth and silky, does need to be churned in a machine to break up the ice crystals while it’s freezing.

The buttermilk and honey ice-cream, right, has a delicious tang from the buttermilk, which is gorgeously balanced by the rich, sweet honey. And if you’re looking for summer in a bowl, then try making the summer berry ice-cream, far right.

However, if you know for certain that you are never going to make ice cream from scratch, then throwing together your own accompaniments will definitely take a shop-bought version up a notch or two.

Summer berry coulis is made from blending fresh or frozen fruit, seasoning it with some sugar and lemon juice, and then straining it. It’s absolutely divine with vanilla ice cream, and a rich chocolate sauce. To make a chocolate sauce, bring cream up to the boil, then take it off the heat, and stir in an equal weight of chopped dark chocolate. It will be divine with or without ice cream!