Oatmeal and Almond Praline Ice-Cream

Oatmeal and Almond Praline Ice-Cream
Home Cooking



I am about to make a HUGE CALL that I will most probably take back at one point or another. Here it goes anyway...

Perhaps my favorite ice-cream flavor to date... after trying gazillions from different places...

would be...

Homer Hudson - DIGGER. It was apparently created by Australian chef Pete Evans and has a description with such luscious food terms as: honey comb pieces and ANZAC biscuit.


I first read about this on Vogue forums (which triggered a huge ice-cream craving and hunt for Homer Hudson branded tubs) but only recently stumbled across this flavor in a shop. It didn't matter that I wasn't actually after any ice-cream that day. I just HAD TO HAVE IT.

So good.

Chewy oat and honey pieces in ice-cream. Very dense and creamy. Has the same kind of 'mouth feel' appeal as rice gelato but I haven't tried that yet.

In any case, I had this urge to recreate the Homer Hudson effect for myself. I did a quick search for oatmeal ice-cream online but in the end, found a recipe in my "The Perfect Scoop" so I went for that instead.

I modified a few steps but the general gist behind this ice-cream recipe is: you make a cinnamon custard base and mix in oatmeal praline in the last few minutes of churning.

Oatmeal and Almond Praline
Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup rolled oats (not instant)
• 1/4 cup crushed almonds
• 1/2 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees celcius. Spread oats and almonds on a piece of baking paper and toast for 5-10min until golden and fragrant. Remove from oven.2. In the mean time, spread the sugar in a non-stick saucepan over medium heat. When it begins to liquefy around the edges. Start stirring constantly until all the sugar is melted and the caramel begins to smoke. Remove from heat.
3. Quickly pour the oats and almonds into the saucepan and stir to evenly coat.
4. Spread the oats/almond back onto the greaseproof paper in a flat layer and let it cool.
5. Break up the pieces into bite sizes and set aside.
Note: these are not really edible in their own right - they're tough and will probably own your teeth. Best to just mix in with your ice-cream.

Oatmeal and Almond Praline Ice-Cream
Makes 500g (I halved the recipe)

Ingredients:

• 125ml full cream milk
• 1/4 granulated sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 30g brown sugar
• pinch of cinammon
• 3 large egg yolks
• Oatmeal almond praline (see above)

Procedure:

1. Warm the milk, granulated sugar and salt in a medium saucepan.
2. Whisk cream, brown sugar and cinnamon together in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top.
3. Beat egg yolks and slowly add to the milk mix whilst stirring constantly.
4. When then custard starts to thicken and coat the spoon, remove from heat and quickly stir it into the cream mixture.
5. Cool mixture in the fridge for 2 hours before churning to your ice-cream makers instructions.
6. Just before it is fully set, add the oatmeal and almond praline.7. You might need to load the ice-cream back into the fridge to set finally before serving.


This ice-cream wasn't what I expected but it was still lovely in its own way. I was originally after a thick, oatmeal-cookie type thing but this ice-cream was more like a creamy vanilla with lovely aromatic crunchy pieces of almond and oat.