Lately the shops in Zürich have been piled high with beautiful ripe mangoes, reminding me of my mother's house in tropical Queensland. So I decided to take advantage of this Swiss mango season and make something very bright and summery for dessert along with the help of my little herb garden where lately the mint has been growing wildly. Speculaas, a Dutch gingerbread biscuit, goes well with almost anything on earth, so I never need an excuse to make some.
Ingredients
- One fresh mango cut into small cubes
- Fresh mint
Macadamia nut ice cream
If you don't have the time/desire to make ice cream from scratch just buy your favourite flavour from the shops - the rest is very quick and easy. For those who'd like to try:- 500 ml milk
- 500 ml pouring cream
- 6 egg yolks
- 150 g caster sugar
- 1 - 2 vanilla beans
- 120 g lightly toasted macadamia nuts
Speculaas crumble
- 150g wholemeal flour
- 50 g toasted whole almonds
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp ground coriander
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 90 g brown sugar
- 110 g unsalted butter
For the macadamia nut ice cream add the milk and cream to a pan, then slice a vanilla bean in half and scrape the seeds into the pan as well as the whole bean and half the sugar. I added a second vanilla bean because I decided I wanted a very vanillary ice cream. A good quality vanilla bean should be quite bendy with an oily exterior, try to avoid stiff and dry vanilla beans.
Warm the cream and milk mixture until it almost begins to boil. Take off the heat and in another bowl whisk the remaining sugar with the egg yolks until light and fluffy. Add to the milk mixture and stir continuously until the mixture can coat the back of a spoon. Don't let it get too hot or it will curdle and you'll have to start again.
Strain and set the mixture in a metal bowl set inside another bowl filled with ice. Place in the refrigerator when it's cooled to room temperature, and then leave until completely cool.
Then add the mixture into your ice cream machine - mine takes around 50 to 60 minutes to set - add the lightly chopped macadamia nuts towards the end when the consistency is quite thick or the nuts will fall to the bottom. If you don't have an ice cream machine you can also place your bowl in the freezer and then stir with a whisk every 30 minutes or so until it's reached an ice cream like consistency.
For the speculaas crumble, preheat the oven to 180 degrees and cover a tray with baking paper.
Use a food processor to grind the almonds to a fine consistency and then add this to the flour, spices, salt and sugar. Add the butter until the dough reaches a nice crumbly texture.
Crumble the dough onto the baking paper and place in the oven for 15 minutes. Once cool, crumble again and leave aside. I've also frozen some unbaked speculaas crumble so that I can easily defrost it and bake it when needed.
Slice the mango into cubes and add fresh mint. Serve and be happy.
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