Lemon Ice Cream Tart

So today is the 26th December – otherwise known as Boxing Day, in my view the sad day after Christmas when all the excitement and waiting is over. But, it is definitely not all bad – now I have lots of nice new things to enjoy and lots of delicious food to finish off..what a hardship.. :) . Yesterday I had the great pleasure in receiving some things which will no doubt be featuring on here very soon…doughnuts anyone??

I hope everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable day yesterday and spent it just how you like to. For me it was church, followed by my Granny and Uncle David coming round, getting the lunch ready, present time!!! and then the most important meal of the year – Christmas lunch! We had a fantastically delicious traditional meal – thankyou Mummy :) For pudding, we served Christmas pudding and (finally I mention it!) this gorgeous tart.

We served it a few night before Christmas to some other friends and it went down very well, but we still had half left. Some of the people at lunch yesterday (me included) are not such fans of Christmas pud, so we had this instead. It goes a long way! It does have quite a bit of alcohol in but hey, its Christmas and it tastes yummy. It does make a lot, as I say, so it is perfect at big celebrations. It is also good for Christmas because it does not go in the oven, which is good as the oven will probably be busy with all the rest of the Christmas lunch. Also, it can be made far in advance so doesn't need to be hurriedly done on the day of the celebration. I think our lemons were quite small, as in the end we added the juice and zest of four rather than two, and perhaps it could have had even more lemony taste. Or if you prefer, you could I suppose reduce some of the alcohol. I really liked the ginger nut crust and think it is much more interesting (for this tart) then a plain digestive one, because it adds a sharp extra element.

Lemon ice cream tart with ginger nut crust, from Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater

120g butter

400g ginger biscuits

For the filling:

150ml white wine

2tbsp marsala

grated zest and juice of 2 lemons

grated zest of an orange

4tbsp caster sugar

500ml double cream

1. You will need a loose bottomed tart tin with a diameter of about 21cm. Line the base of the tart tin with a single piece of greaseproof paper.
2. Melt the butter in a small pan. Crush the biscuits in a food processor or bash them in a plastic bag. You want them to be a coarse powder.
3. Stir the biscuits into the butter. Line the base of the tin with the buttered crumbs, pushing far up the edges. Put the crumb lined tin in the freezer.
4. Pour the wine into the bowl of a food mixer. Add the Marsala and the grated zest of the lemons and orange. Squeeze the lemons and add the juice.
5. Add the sugar and cream to the wine and zest mixture, then beat slowly until thick. The consistency needs to be soft and thick, so that it lies in voluptuous folds rather than standing in stiff peaks.
6. Scrape the mixture into the crumb lined tin and freeze for at least four hours. Remove from the freezer 15-20 mins before you intend to serve it.

Of course, now that Christmas is over, it means so is my Advent Series. It was not.. ahem…successful, and I, for all manner of reasons, did not quite manage to post every day.. hehe. But I did enjoy doing it and I think I posted more than I normally do, which was fun. Perhaps posting everyday was a little ambitious for me – and I have renewed admiration for those that do this, such as Marie! I hope you enjoyed what I did do!

x