After coming across speculoos spread in Belgium I have been obsessed! This ice cream is gorgeous and creamy, packed with speculoos spices, and of course I swirled some speculoos spread through the finished product. I hope you enjoy this recipe!
Recipe adapted from: Three Bears Melbourne
Ingredients
330mL milk
1 vanilla pod, split
4 cm length of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced finely
5 whole cloves
1 cardamom pod
200g dark brown sugar
200mL pure cream (not thickened with gelatine)
4 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla essence
Speculoos spice
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
Approx. 3/4 cup speculoos spread (a.k.a. speculaas, Biscoff, cookie butter) - for swirling into the ice cream
Method
1. Heat milk until just above body temperature, ensuring that it does not boil. I did this in the microwave but you can use a saucepan on the stove if you like.
2. Add the vanilla pod, sliced ginger, cloves and cardamom pod to the milk. (I didn't have a vanilla or cardamom pod on hand so I just used the fresh ginger and the whole cloves). Let the mixture infuse for 30-45 minutes.
3. When the milk is nearly done infusing, combine the brown sugar and cream in a medium saucepan. Heat the mixture over a medium heat and stir until the sugar has melted. When the mixture is smooth, remove it from the heat.
4. Strain the milk to remove the spices, and whisk the egg yolks in.
5. Whisking constantly, slowly pour the milk mixture into the sugar and cream mixture. The constant whisking is to prevent the egg yolks from cooking.
6. Return the mixture to medium heat and cook until it starts to thicken, about 10 minutes. The mixture should coat the back of a spatula/wooden spoon.
7. Remove the thickened mixture from the heat and stir the vanilla essence in.
8. Set the mixture aside to cool down to room temperature.
9. Add the dry speculoos spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cardamom) to the cooled mixture, stir until combined. You can taste test at this point and add more spices to suit your tastes if you like!
10. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and churn as per the manufacturer's instructions. I churned mine for about 30 minutes.
(If you don't have an ice cream maker, pour the mixture into a freezer-safe container and freeze for about 4 hours. When almost fully set, take the ice cream out of the freezer and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy, then put back into the freezer. You can do this another time after a few more hours of freezing if the ice cream is not set enough.)
11. With a knife or spatula, stir bite sized amounts of speculoos spread through the ice cream. When frozen, the speculoos is really hard so make sure that the chunks aren't too big!
12. Decant the ice cream into a bucket or tin and place in the freezer to set fully.
Enjoy!
