Not, alas, ice-cream you can have for breakfast. (well…) No, it’s ice-cream with breakfast foods in it.

The most famous example is Heston Blumental’s egg-and-bacon ice-cream, which is based on Victorian recipes. But I’m guessing most of you don’t have a nitro-freezer, so we’ll leave that to one side as well.

These are actually two of my favourite Victorian ice-creams. Considering they’re both based on foods I don’t like in the normal course of things, it’s interesting the difference ice-cream can make. Maybe a good way of persuading kids to eat more healthily?

Anyway, it’s brown bread and marmalade this week. Enjoy!

Brown Bread Ice-Cream

Ingredients

1 pint brown bread crumbs (about a loaf’s worth)
8 tablespoons noyeau (apricot liquer) or maraschino (cherry liquer) syrup
1 pint ice-cream base

Equipment

Large bowl
Large spoon
Untiring fingers (or a food processor)
As for ice-cream base

Instructions

Let the brown bread go a little stale. Break it up, and either crumble it by hand or bung into a food processor.

Stir in the syrup you’ve chosen. Both taste almondy, so if you can’t get either an almond syrup will do. Noyeau (also spelt Noyau, Noyeaux, and Noyaux) is very similar to amaretto, so you can substitute that in too. The Victorian’s did like their boozy ice-cream.

Mix with the ice-cream base, and follow those instructions.

This is very good in small doses, and tastes quite cakey. The Victorians likes it either as an entremet or a dessert ice, and it was particularly popular at garden parties.

Marmalade, Orange or Lemon, Cream Ice

Ingredients

1 teacup of smooth marmalade (1 cup)
The juice of 2 oranges or lemons
1 wineglass of orange or lemon syrup (1/2 a cup)
1 pint ice-cream base

Equipment

Bowl
Spoon
Juicer
Sieve
As for ice-cream base

Instructions

Mix the marmalade into the (unfrozen) ice-cream base, stirring hard so it mixes thoroughly.

Add the juice (if it’s orange marmalade, then orange, if it’s lemon, or bitter orange, then lemon) and the syrup.

Mix thoroughly again, and sieve. It can be fun to add a little orange peel at this point, or some shredded marmalade, to give it a bit of texture.

Follow the ice-cream base instructions to freeze.