Turkish Delight Ice Cream

A few month ago ago, we had a lovely colleague visiting from Istanbul and she brought with her several boxes of Turkish Delight. We do a lot of business with Turkey so there’s usually a fair amount of Turkish delight floating around the office. However, we hadn’t seen any in a couple months so everyone pounced on it.

I refused eating my share for a few days, then I had the sense to grab a couple of handfuls before the boxes became pathetic empty shells containing woeful remains of powdered sugar. Instead of scarfing the candy down, I cut each piece into smaller nuggets and threw them into a delicious creamy vanilla ice cream custard to see what would happen. I loved the result and I saved this post for closer to Christmas because of how festive the ice cream looked.

There were several varieties and I used a bit from each flavor. This is not the easiest ice cream to eat but wow is it good.  The Turkish delight of course hardens with the freezing and can be a bit tough to chew but it makes for an unusual flavor and it looks to pretty too. I found if I let the pieces melt in my mouth a bit, it was not problem and well worth the extra effort.

Ingredients:

• 4 egg yolks
• 1 cup cream
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup sugar
• pinch of kosher salt
• 1 cup Turkish Delight, chopped into small pieces

Directions:

• Whisk the egg yolks together in a heat proof bowl and set aside.
• Heat the cream, milk, sugar and salt together in a heavy bottomed saucepan.
• Remove mixture just before boiling and slowly pour into the egg yolks whisking  constantly.
• Strain the mixture back into the saucepan and heat until it thickens, until it covers the back of a wooden spoon.
• Pour back into the bowl, cover with plastic wrap so the wrap is touching the mixture and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.
• Remove the plastic wrap,  pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
• When ice cream reaches soft serve consistency, add the chopped Turkish Delight.
• Secure the cover on the container and place in the freezer for a few hours or until ready to serve.