easy no-churn lemon ice cream

Easy peasy lemon Squeezy ice-cream.

Did you know that you can make your own homemade ice cream with just two main ingredients, and without the help of any fancy equipment whatsoever? If you fold together whipped double cream with crumbled meringue nests and stick in the freezer, it creates the perfect ice cream texture. So then you can just add whichever flavour you like; stir in a lemon curd, or a raspberry coulis, or some vanilla essence and some chocolate chips, etc.

Try it for yourself – your guests won’t believe you made it!

You will need:

• 600ml double cream

• 2 packets of meringue nests (around 16 nests in total)

• 5 teaspoons vanilla essence

• 8 lemons

• 1 cup of sugar

Method:

1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the double cream with an electric whisk until nice and thick and firm.

2. Either using a rolling pin, pestle & mortar, or your bare hands, crumble the meringue nests into a powder and fold the powder into the mixture by slowly stirring it in (don’t use an electric mixer for this!)

3. Grate the zest of half of the lemons into a saucepan, then place a seive above the saucepan and squeeze out the juice of all 8 of the lemons. Heat the lemon juice on a low heat whilst slowly stirring in the sugar to create a thick, sweet, lemony syrup, then add the vanilla essence.

4. Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

5. Slowly pour the mixture in with the double cream and gently fold together.

6. Add more sugar / lemon / vanilla essence to taste, then pour into a tupperware and place in the freezer overnight (or for at least 5 hours if during the day).

7. Serve either in bowls or hollow out the insides of the lemons* and fill them with the ice cream! *You need big lemons for this to make it less fiddly. Ta-daa! I challenge you not to have seconds…