recipe: honey ice-cream

w/ poached quince and fresh honeycomb

What I’m reading: Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe - a really talented journalist who also wrote Say Nothing. I’ve been working my way through this collection of stories and thoroughly enjoying them.

What I’m listening to: Rosie Kellett on the Go To Food podcast

What I’m eating: a very enjoyable meal at Agora (below) - highlights included the slow grilled chicken thigh and spicy pork sausage flatbread

This recipe for honey ice-cream is the very happy result of a delivery from Epping Good Honey. A few months ago, the lovely Clare came in to do a tasting with her range of honeys and honeycombs. The honey is harvested seasonally, meaning that each batch has a slightly different flavour profile. Clare gave us tasting notes for the batch that we got (summer 2024), and we were able to build the dessert based on the flavour profile of that particular batch.

This batch of honey is “floral and fruity with good acidity and long finish”, and I personally tasted thyme (it was reminiscent of family trips to the south of France to visit my aunt and uncle, where we would walk in the Garrigue surrounded by wild rosemary, sage and thyme). For this ice-cream, I used a fairly straightforward custard base, but instead of sugar, used 100% honey, which I boiled for a few minutes to remove some of the moisture and make the flavours more concentrated. I also infused the milk and cream with thyme to complement the honey, and added a pinch of salt for balance.

We’ve been serving this ice-cream with a generous nugget of fresh honeycomb and some poached quince (I only recently nailed how to poach quince and get that beautiful deep red colour, so if you’re interested in the method, drop me a message x).

recipe: honey ice-cream