There is something absolutely sneaky and yet so satisfying about taking a childhood favorite food, a food most delicious and also most childishly fun to play with, and turn that food into a grown up version of itself!
Thus it is with cheeky pride that I present you with one of my favorite childhood candy treats, haw flakes, a candy made from the hawthorn fruit, now transformed into Haw Flakes Roselle Ice Cream 山楂餠洛神花雪糕, a most elegantly fruity and tangy ice cream infused with the kiss of orange liqueur. My oh my, some very grown up ice cream-liciousness!
So here it is, Haw Flakes candy 山楂餠! Haw flakes are made from hawthorns, a fruit that looks rather like a small apple from the hawthorn tree (more in our post on Hawthorn fruits.) Every Chinese kid knows these candies, it's a classic Chinese treat! (See our post on Haw Flakes for more) Mashed up and sweetened hawthorn fruit are shaped and dried into cute round little discs, stacked up in cylinders and then wrapped in bright and eye catching paper packaging. For a lot of kids, especially here in Hong Kong, these candies are associated with Chinese herbal medicine, as haw flakes were given to sweeten the after taste of the usually bitter medicine.
For myself as a kid I always associated haw flakes with firecrackers cuz, lol, well I thought they were fire crackers...and also candies, at the same time, if that makes any sense? Kids, amirite? It was so much fun to eat these candies: first carefully digging a single red haw flake disc out of the crinkly paper wrapping, placing it on my tongue to ever so slowly melt into a sweet, fruity and slightly tangy messy goop. Omg so yummy...
Today we’re gonna apply that haw flake yummiliciousness to transform that sweet fruity tartness into an elegant ice cream! Look for haw flakes at any asian grocery stores, Chinese herbal pharmacies and online here.
To complement the haw flake flavor we add some dried roselle 洛神花. Roselle is the part of the hibiscus flower that is left when the petals dry up and fall off, also called the calyx. It has a tart flavor, rather like that of cranberry and infuses with a most lovely dark pink color. Roselle can be used to make a refreshing Roselle Tea as well as to flavor and color desserts.
For our ice cream we add roselle to up the refreshingly tart factor and also to give our ice cream a lovely rose colored hue. Look to buy roselle at Chinese dried spice shops or Chinese pharmacy shops or online here.
The first step for this ice cream is done the night before. Put your haw flakes and the dried roselle in a water soak.
The next day your haw flakes will have melted into the water while the dried roselle will have infused all the water with its flavor and color. Such a lovely red mess! The mixture is then strained to remove the roselle leaves.
Ice cream is basically frozen custard! And to make custard we need two parts, the milky part and the eggy part. We’ll start with the milky part.
The milk mixture for our ice cream contains milk, cream and sweetened condensed milk. To that is added the melted haw flake /roselle mixture. Stir, stir, stir…
This milky mixture is heated up until almost boiling, with light bubbles forming around edges of the pot and a light steam rising. Keep your eye on the pot as it cooks, you definitely don’t want the milk to boil! When almost boiling remove the pot from heat immediately and go on to prepare the eggy part of the ice cream custard.
The eggy part consists of egg yolks and sugar. Be sure to save your egg whites for making macarons (Check out our surefire macaron recipe!) The egg yolks and sugar are whisked until lightened in color.
The milky part and the eggy part of the ice cream are then combined but not all at once. If you add all the eggy mixture to the hot milky mixture the egg will cook and you will have a pot full of of hot milk and scrambled eggs!
So how to add the eggs then? Add a spoonful of the hot milky mixture to the eggy mixture while stirring the eggs (image left). Repeat, spoonful by spoonful, stirring the whole time, slowly raising the temperature of the eggy mixture up to match the temperature of the milky mixture. By thus raising the temperature of the eggs bit by bit you can avoid cooking the eggs.
Once the eggy mixture is all warmed up it is added back into the milky mixture, making a custard mixture that is placed back on the stove.
The custard mixture is then heated and stirred and scraped over a low heat until it thickens enough to coat the back of your stirring spoon. Test doneness by drawing a finger across the coating on the spoon. If the drawn line is stays clean (as per photo above) then your custard mixture is thickened enough.
Note that when we added our eggs our ice cream custard became more of a light brown color than pink. Maybe our yolks were really yellow? Anywyas, not exactly what we were shooting for. So we added a few drops of red gel food coloring to bring the pink back.
Time now to cool the hot thickened custard down! Set the custard bowl over ice or into a bowl of cool water to cool the custard down to room temp. If you're using cool water to cool the custard be sure to change the water as it heats up.
Once the custard is room temperature cool, the final, elegant touch is to add a drop of luscious orange liqueur to really give the ice cream a 'grown up' and sophisticated flavor layer. We used Grand Marnier, but alternate orange liqueurs you could use are Cointreau or Curaçao. Or you could also substitute an alternate fruity liqueur of your choice.
At this point, if you have an ice cream machine, you should follow the ice cream machine's instructions for making ice cream. Do remember to pre freeze your freezer bucket the night before if your machine requires this. I wish I had an ice cream machine but teeny tiny Hong Kong houses don't really have room for a lot of large gadgets ;(
However, you don't actually need a machine to make ice cream! Just pour custard into a container and then chill it, first in the fridge until cold and then in the freezer. Freeze for a couple of hours until ice crystals start to form. Use a whisk to whisk the custard smooth. Repeat freezing and whisking smooth around once a half hour or so until the mixture achieves a soft serve like consistency. Then let the ice cream freeze over completely and you've made ice cream without a machine!
Haw Flakes Roselle Ice Cream is a luxurious ice cream with the unique sweet, tangy and fruity flavor of a classic Chinese kid's candy and a contrasting luscious 'grownup' undertone of citrusy liqueur. Playful and elegantly yummilicious...try it for yourself and see!
Haw Flakes Roselle Ice Cream Recipe
山楂餠洛神花雪糕
(adapted from The Complete Book of Authentic Chinese Dim Sum by Katsumi Yoshioka) (makes 1.5 liters) Soak: overnight Prep: 5 mins Cook: 10 mins
Ingredients:
- 9 Haw Flake cylinders 山楂餠, 112g
- 0.28 oz dried roselle flowers 洛神花, 8g
- 1 cup 7 tbsp cool boiled water, 338g
- 5 tbsp sweetened condensed milk, 75g
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp whipping cream, 150g
- 2/3 cup milk, 150g
- 4 large egg yolks, 75g
- 3 tbsp sugar, 38g
- 2 tbsp orange liqueur (Grand Marnier or Cointreau)
Directions:
Pre-freeze ice cream machine component: If using an ice cream machine (which we didn’t, please see last step below for how to make ice cream without a machine) place freezer bowl into freezer 12 hours beforehand.
Soak overnight: Add cooled boiled water, haw flakes and dried roselle flowers to a bowl. Cover and leave to soak overnight. The next day put the soaked mixture thru a sieve to remove the roselle and to make sure all the haw flakes are melted.
Prepare the milky mixture: Add sweetened condensed milk, whipping cream and milk into a small pot. Add the haw flake/roselle mash. Stir to incorporate and heat over a low heat until the milky mixture is almost boiling. You should see small bubbles forming at edges of the pot and a light steam rising. Remove from heat immediately and keep covered while preparing the eggy mixture.
Prepare the eggy mixture: Add the egg yolks and sugar to a bowl and whisk until lightened in color.
Mix milky & eggy mixtures: Add a spoonful of the hot milky mixture to the eggy mixture while stirring. Repeat adding one spoonful of milky mixture at a time and stirring until the temperature of the eggy mixture is approx as hot as the milky mixture.
Cook the custard: Pour all the now hot eggy mixture into the milky mixture in the pot. Stir to incorporate and place back on to a low heat. Cook while stirring with a silicon scraper until the custard reaches 180°F (83°C) or until it is thickened enough to coat the back on a spoon and you can draw a finger thru the coating while leaving a clean line. Remove from heat. Pass thru a sieve to remove any particles, ensuring a smoother custard.
Cool the custard: Cool the custard by placing over ice or into a larger bowl of cool water. If using water to cool change the water a few times as it will heat up. Once the custard is cooled to room temperature place into the fridge to chill.
Make ice cream with a machine: Follow the instructions of your ice cream machine to make ice cream.
Make ice cream without a machine: Pour ice cream into a container that is big enough to allow for stirring and will fit in your freezer. Place in freezer and let freeze for at least an hour or until the custard begins to crystallize around the edges. Use a whisk or a hand blender to stir vigorously to break up ice crystals. Place back into freezer and repeat every half hour or so until the custard reaches a soft serve like consistency. Return to freezer to let it set completely overnight. Enjoy!
Ice-creamilicious at The Hong Kong Cookery:
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