Lemon Speculoos

I had some time on a Friday afternoon with no ice cream in the freezer, so I decided to make a more elaborate ice cream. I had recently been paging through some of my other cookbooks and came across a recipe for lemon curd, which I thought sounded good in some ice cream. I ended up pairing it with a lemon crème fraîche (more lemon!) and some speculoos for some textural contrast.

Rating: 4 scoops

This ice cream was pretty good, although the lemon felt a little muted. Being frozen could have muted the flavor or else I didn't have enough lemon curd in my scoop and I have should have spooned some on as a topping. The crème fraîche added a nice flavor boost that I appreciated alongside what lemon I did taste! The speculoos were great in the ice cream - I had thought they might get a little mushy in the freezer but this wasn't the case with the little pockets of cookie throughout.

I was inspired by a recipe in The Perfect Scoop but modified it by changing the ice cream base and with the addition of the curd.

To make this ice cream, I started off with the lemon curd - this is pudding-like with lemon flavor. I did find a variation in one of my ice cream books that ups the sugar so it stays soft in the freezer. I'm not entirely sure if the recipe turned out right since it seemed a little thin coming off the stove but a rest overnight in the fridge thickened it up. I'll have to try again in the future. Either way - it tasted great as a scoopful warm from the stove or cold from the fridge!

Speculoos are a Belgium spiced cookie similar to gingersnaps. If you've had Biscoff cookies before, you've had speculoos. In this case, I left them a little softer for some nice textural contrast but I suppose I could have baked them longer so they would be crispy similar to Biscoff.

Finally, the ice cream follows a typical Philly style that had been infused with lemon zest and addition of crème fraîche. There is far less cream in this version as the crème fraîche adds back some of the fat and protein. Because both lemon juice (more lemon flavor!) and crème fraîche are acidic, those were added after the base had been cooled. I could have made my own crème fraîche if I had planned even further ahead (it takes ~48 hours to make) but I elected to simply purchase it.

When it came time to churn the ice cream, I crumbled up the speculoos and had the lemon curd at the ready! The speculoos were added directly to the base and the lemon curd was drizzled in as the storage container was getting filled. A little extra scoop of lemon curd when cleaning up is one of those chef's pleasures!