GCC: Saffron Kulfi Ice Cream

To complete our Moroccan/Indian themed meal we made Saffron Kulfi from The Illustrated Kitchen Bible for Gutsy Cooks Club this week.

So evidently Saffron Kulfi is an ice cream eaten in India. Again not something that we were familiar with but we interested to try.

 The flavors sounded intriguing and complimentary to the Harissa Lamb that we had made. The part I forgot in all of my planning for this meal is that ice cream made without an ice cream maker was not going to freeze within in an hour for dessert. So we had to actually have our ice cream the next day...which was fine as we were quite full after our meal.

No gutsy here either, just stuck to the very unfamiliar recipe on this one.

The first step included steeping the saffron in water.

Soaked the saffron, yes, saffron again. We do love a little saffron, never had it in ice cream before this but assumed it would have to be good.

Next I chopped the pistachios. Oh yum, pistachios in ice cream are wonderful.

Then the condensed milk was mixed with the pistachios and next then saffron liquid is added lastly. It added that intense yellow color.

The next step was to whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form and fold in the pistachio mixture.

The recipe then called for pouring the mixture into ice cube trays to be frozen.( I don't recommend this step personally. It was a mess to remove them from the trays. I'm not quite sure what the point of this was except maybe to give them a shape, which didn't work because I had to dig them out. ) The next day after they were frozen we scooped them out into a dish and then topped with some chopped pistachios and mint.

The ice cream is good but incredibly, incredibly rich because of the sweetened condensed milk. But it was a great sweet treat.

Recipe for Saffron Kulfi:

Yield : Makes 6–8 servings

Prep Time : 10 mins, plus freezing

Ingredients

• Pinch saffron threads
• ½ cup pistachios
• One 14 oz  can condensed milk
• 1½ cups heavy cream

Special Equipment

• 2 silicone ice cube trays

Directions

1. In a small bowl, soak the saffron threads in 1 tbsp boiling water for 2 minutes. Chop the pistachios roughly, and reserve a few to scatter on the top. Finely chop the remaining pistachios.
2. Mix the condensed milk and finely chopped pistachios together in a bowl. Stir in the saffron and its liquid.
3. Whip the cream until it holds soft peaks. Fold it into the saffron mixture until well combined. Fill the ice cube trays with the mixture. Freeze at least 4 hours, until completely set. When frozen, place the ice cube trays into zippered freezer bags and freeze until ready to serve.
4. To serve, unmold the kulfi out of the ice cube trays onto chilled plates. Sprinkle with the reserved pistachios and serve immediately