African Vanielje on Jun 11 2008 at 1:33 am | Filed under: ice cream
There are a few things that come to mind as quintessentially British summer: Pimms, a maximum of 3 days of actual summer, a rained out Wimbledon championship, and of course strawberries. Well we’ve now had two hot days in a row which may have broken some sort of English record, and with local strawberries cheaper than cheap at the moment I am fully prepared to break another record for excessive strawberry consumption. My neigbour spent the weekend in Cambridgeshire where she noticed that they were still getting Dutch strawberries, but here in the West country we have been indulging unashamedly in local produce for several weeks already.
I collected a very hot and bothered child from school and soothed her with the promise of a swim and some icecream. The swim we took care of immediately but I managed to put the icecream off until after she’d had her tea, whereupon we both dashed for the freezer to commence with the Sundae production.
For perfect Strawberry Sundaes you will need a punnet of freshly washed local strawberries. Check. A tub of homemade strawberry icecream. Check. Some miniature Bitter Chocolate Butterfly Biscuits to garnish. Here are some I made earlier. Chop, scoop and assemble in a coupe, a sundae dish, a cereal bowl, oh sod it, in whichever glass or bowl is closest to hand. It’s hot outside and the icecream is melting.
I was concentrating on the perfect ratio of strawberries to icecream, Kody was concentrating on squashing as many strawberries and scoops of icecream as she could into her glass. My masterpiece complete, I reached over to the cooling rack for a couple of butterflies, only to find that my multi tasking mini me had munched, chopped and scooped simultaneously and all but one little chocolate biscuit was now tucked into one or both of her chipmunk cheeks. How she managed to lick the icecream scoop at the same time is a mystery of childhood that obviously receeds into the mists of time as we approach adulthood. I suspect it may be something to do with faith. If you believe,it will be possible.
I know there are some strange people out there who are not fans of the strawberry / chocolate combo, but I love a crisp biscuit to highlight the richness of icecream, and a bitter dark chocolate is my perfect foil for the lush sweetness of strawberries, so these Strawberry Sundaes are high on my list of perfect summer desserts. Or breakfasts…or lunches… Only they cant be Sundaes mom! It’s Tuesday!
This is my entry into Root Source Challenge #17: Strawberries. Hosted by Cookthink. Check them out for other entries.
I could dive into that strawberry ice cream!!! Your desserts are always as beautiful as you are and your stories so entertaining. I missed them while away.
I’m glad you are getting some warmth…hmmm…global warming? xx
The thought of summer strawberries while we are in the middle of a winter rainy day is wonderful and those biscuits look great. Two hot days in a row – I hope there are still some to come.
My kids can’t believe that there isn’t going to be a swimming pool anywhere, when we visit Granny in Somerset in two weeks time and are saying “but we’ll get so hot!” They didn’t believe me when I told them we’ll more likely be wearing our fleeces! We’ll have to go strawberry picking when we’re there and make a batch of ice cream.
Simultaneously and at the same time we too were making strawberry icecream, with soja milk instead of cream and I made a layer of crumbled almondcookies and chopped marsh mallows at the bottom of the container, spreading the ice on top and when everything was frozen I glued some strawberry slices on top with self made strawberry confiture from last year. A glutenfree and dairyfree alternative to the scrumptious strawberry ice recipe from BBC Good Food guide, june edition. I took this to a meeting yesterday morning where it arrived as a beautiful semifreddo to go with our espresso’s and the chocolate-almond cake one of the other authors baked. Oh, and look out for Korona or Lambada strawberries, wonderfully sweet, mostly available at PYO’s, in the shop you probably will get Elsanta’s that are only popular because they keep well during transport and still look more or less fresh after three days!
It looks gorgeous. I love the little butterfly and the description of the chipmunk cheeks filled with them. I’ve become a big fan of Alvin and the Chipmunks so anybody resembling a chipmunk is okay in my book…
This is so much better than the Tigertail icecream that we served up to 100 kids last night for dinner. I love the whimsical touch you always add too Inge with the little butterfly.
So beautiful… and so appealing. it makes me long for ice cream!