Win a Cuisinart ice-cream maker from Kitchenware Direct!

Although I can eat ice-cream in any kind of weather, my childhood memories of summer revolve around the trinity of ice-cream, stone fruits and berries. Memories of driving up the coast to a family friend’s orchard outside of Gosford – in one of my family’s successive second-hand cars without air-conditioning, legs and arms sticking to the vinyl seats, which would invariably result in an overheated radiator, us pulling up to the side of the highway and piling out of the car to stretch our legs – and returning with boxes full of peaches and mangoes collected from the base of trees as fruit which was deemed “unfit” for sale. The fruit would last us through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, eaten hunched over the sink (me elevated by a footstool in order to reach said sink) with juices running down our arms and the corners of our mouths. Strawberries and cherries would appear in our kitchen around the same time, when they were at their cheapest and sweetest and back when these fruits were truly consumed seasonally as they couldn’t be found for sale at any other time of year.

Fresh strawberries with vanilla ice-cream was and still is a particular simple summer favourite of mine, as is real strawberry ice-cream – you know, the kind which tastes like strawberries married with ice-cream rather than the baby pink, candy-tasting variety. Of course there’s the option of making your own, or any other flavour which takes your fancy, when armed with an ice-cream churner of your own like the shiny red one above – because kitchen appliances always work better when in sexy red, no?

Cheesecake ice-cream was my flavour of choice when it came to making my first custard-based ice-cream, using Ms Lawson’s recipe from one of her many cookbooks which I own but which also can be found here, and it really does taste like cheesecake frozen into an ice-creamy texture. Served with crumbled digestive biscuit rubble and a strawberry completes the cheesecake picture, or you could add strawberry (or any fruit) purée and/or biscuit crumbs into the ice-cream mixture during the final stages of churning – the wide pouring spout on Cuisinart’s ice-cream makers make it easy – for serving the ice-cream in cones, waffle baskets or bowls instead. Sandwiched between a couple of digestive biscuits to make ice-cream sandwiches works a treat too – just wrap up and freeze the sandwiches to allow the biscuits to soften for easier eating.

Sorbets, like the lime and Ribena varieties below (shot of vodka optional), are much less laborious and time-efficient when made with the aid of an ice-cream churner. I’ve made many in the past using the freeze-for-a-couple-of-hours-blitz-and-repeat method in either a food-processor or blender and it takes the better part of a day to obtain a smooth sorbet, all the while keeping an eye on the clock like a hawk-eyed mother to a newborn, not to mention the dribbles which are lost through transferring the mixture from container to blitzer and back again... and again...

Right in time for a Christmas gift for a special someone (or yourself!) and the summery days, the kind people at Kitchenware Direct are giving away a Cuisinart ice-cream maker up to the value of $150 from their site to one lucky Spoon, Fork & Chopsticks reader. All you have to do is:

1. Leave a comment below telling me what flavour of ice-cream/sorbet/frozen dessert best represents your memories of summer, and why. Entries close Friday, 9 December 2011 at 11pm Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time and are open to Australian residents only. The winning entrant will be chosen by Monsieur Poisson (AKA the Husband, AKA the one who doesn’t cook) and will be published here in a future post. Any rude/profane/offensive entries will be deleted and excluded from competition.

2.     AND send an email to mademoiselledelicieuse@gmail.com with the subject line of “Cusinart giveaway” and include your full name as well as a copy of your comment in the body of the email. This is so you can be contacted should you be the chosen winner.

Terms & conditions:

1.     The winner will receive one Cuisinart ice-cream maker of their choice up to the value of $150 from the Kitchenware Direct website. The value difference between $150 and the chosen product will not be refunded.

2.     The item chosen must be in stock.

3.     The winner will be contacted by Kitchenware Direct to arrange delivery details.

Mademoiselle Délicieuse received a Cuisinart 2L Ice Cream, Yoghurt & Sorbet Maker for review courtesy of Kitchenware Direct as part of this post.

good luck!