Ice-Cream Month: Chocolate and Pistachio Brownie Sundae

Looking for a decadent treat? Try out this rich pistachio and chocolate brownie sundae, completely with chocolate syrup and pistachio nut praline.

When my companion and I celebrated our anniversary a few weeks ago, we went to a restaurant a few miles from his house in the countryside. We enjoyed a nice dinner, and then turned to the dessert menu: the first thing that leaped out at me was a 'pistachio and chocolate parfait': it was a dessert with little squares of firm-set chocolate mousse, with a scoop of pistachio ice-cream, little brownie squares, sprinkled with praline.... with a random scoop of mango sorbet.

The dessert itself was mostly uninspiring, but what hurt my feelings most was the pistachio ice-cream: it tasted like someone had bought some vanilla ice-cream, added in some chopped nuts and almond essence, then coloured it green. It certainly didn't taste of pistachio.

So, inspired by that dessert, I came up with this decadent treat, except you get an entire brownie, and no weird out-of-place scoops of mango sorbet. I'm really pleased with the flavour of this pistachio ice-cream: cream is really easy to infuse with flavour! And using the nuts leftover from infusing to make praline means not one of those super-expensive nuts goes to waste.

INGREDIMENTS
To make four sundaes, each with one scoop of ice cream

For two-thirds of a pint (370 millilitres) caramel ice-cream,

• 8 UK fluid ounces (230 millilitres) whipping cream, plus a little extra for correction
• 6 UK fluid ounces (170 millilitres) condensed milk
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) roasted salted pistachio nuts, without shells
• A drop of almond essence
• A few drops of vanilla essence
• A touch of green food colouring

To serve

• 4 chocolate brownies, cakey or fudgey
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon (15 grammes) butter
• Chocolate ice-cream sauce

METHOD

The night before you want to serve the sundaes, make the ice-cream.

• Roughly chop the pistachio nuts, and wash them under running water to get rid of any excess salt.
• Pour the nuts into a medium saucepan, and add the whipping cream. Place the saucepan over medium low heat, and bring to boiling point. Once it begins to boil, remove from the heat and allow to cool completely before chilling for at least an hour. The cream needs to be good and properly cold.
• Strain the cream through a fine sieve to remove the chopped pistachio nuts; set the nuts aside for later. In the process of straining, you may lose some cream, as such you might need to top the cream level back up to 8 fluid ounces (230 millilitres).
• In a large bowl, beat the infused cream, condensed milk, the colouring, and the essences together until it becomes light and moussey; this can take up to 5 or 6 minutes. 
• If you want, add more essence or food colouring, but start out small: you can always add, but you can't take away.
• Pour into a one-pint (580 millilitre) container and freeze overnight, or for at least 6 hours.

Next, make the praline,

• Lightly grease a flat metal baking tray.
• Take the reserved pistachio nuts and rinse them once more to wash off the cream. Once rinsed, dry lightly in a tea towel, then toast them in a dry frying pan until nice and dry and fragant. Remove from the heat.
• In a saucepan with a pale interior, cook the caster sugar with a splash of water (roughly a tablespoon, or 15 millilitres), stirring constantly, until the sugar begins to turn brown.
• Add in the nuts and stir well. The mixture will become crumbly, and when this happens add in the butter and stir until it all comes together.
• Pour the praline out onto the tray and allow to set completely.

Now, assemble the masterpieces

• Take the praline and break it into pieces, or bash up with a pestle and mortar (or plastic bag and rolling pin). 
• Heat up the brownies in a warm oven, or in the microwave. 
• Place each brownie on a plate or shallow bowl, and divide the ice-cream among the brownies. 
• Decorate with chocolate sauce and praline.

Variation on a Theme: Persian Banana Bread

I usually like to experiment with ingredients and flavours and see what mental image they bring to mind, and when I looked in the press and saw leftover pistachio nuts from my pistachio ice-cream fiasco, an image of hanging gardens, men in parachute pants on black horses with curved swords, and bejewelled belly-dancers in head scarves came to mind. Do not ask me why, although my recent works-of-Zack-Snyder marathon (including "300") may have put me in the right frame of mind to conjure such images.

So, I went ahead and made a Persian inspired banana bread with pistachios and orange-lemon glaze.

Middle-Eastern cookery has been fashionable over the last 5 or so years, I have found. Here in Limerick all of a sudden Lebanese restaurants have sprung up, jars of Moroccan spices and preserved lemons have started to appear in the supermarkets, and cookery programmes have been centred on Moroccan and "Persian-style" cookery and street food. I know that Morocco is nowhere near the Middle East, but countries that border the Mediterranean sea to the south and the east tend to have the same sensibility when it comes to flavours and combinations.

When I think of Persian food, I think of citrus fruits (especially lemons), pistachios, prunes, lamb, spices (cinnamon, ginger, star anise, turmeric, paprika, mint, coriander, and cloves spring foremost to mind) honey, almonds, chickpeas and flatbreads. I know there isn't a single banana in sight in that list, but I just fancied some banana bread and making it a little bit more interesting.

So, I used my vegan banana bread recipe (and it turned out quite differently this time, the high likelihood of which I explain in that recipe) and added:

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ginger and 1/2 teaspoon garam masala blend for the spices
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) toasted and chopped pistachio nuts for the filling

When it was cooked, I brushed the top with some very delicious Seville orange marmalade, warmed mixed with about 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, and then put the loaf back in the oven for about 3 minutes to set the glaze.

Needless to say it is very delicious, but due to the variant nature of bananas, this one turned out much drier than usual. I'm thinking maybe some sort of peanut butter and jam sandwich inspired load next, but I am yet to work out how exactly that would translate into a loaf.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Sweeties Make Great Gifts, Hopefully!

How NOT to Make Pistachio Ice-Cream: Another Failure

So a few posts ago I did some experimentation with hazelnut ice-cream and decided to try pistachio ice-cream.

Thinking that my method was sound and that my overwhipped the cream was the thing that caused it to fail, I repeat the exact same method but this time with pistachios. I added 3 ounces (85 grammes) each of ground toasted

pistachios and icing sugar to 8 fluid ounces (230 millilitres) of whipping cream and beat then together until light and fluffy, as is the usual method of making no churn ice-cream.

As it turns out, it wasn't just the overwhipping part that was wrong, the whole recipe itself doesn't work. It leads to a rock hard, crumbly and mostly unpleasant product that is a far cry from anything I have successfully made so far using the cream and condensed milk version.

I supposed I strayed from the condensed milk road thinking that using only nuts and a little sugar would make a really flavourful ice-cream, but I've now come to realise just how integral the condensed milk is to the process in keeping it soft enough to serve. Lesson learnt for real this time.

I think the next time I make a nut ice-cream I'll just add powdered nuts to the cream and condensed milk mixture, even if the flavour isn't as intense.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Ginger Nut Biscuits