When I was a child we lived in Yorkshire, in the countryside between Leeds and York. Saturdays were shopping days and so my parents used to put my sister and me in the back of the car and drive in to the nearest town York to do the weekly shop.
For a child it was pretty boring, I used to hate Saturday mornings. This was well before the days of children's in car entertainment and so me and my sister used to have to amuse ourselves by playing games. I Spy was a favourite, as was a bizarre game we had of trying to spot car registrations alphabetically. Anyhow long before York the games used to turn from fun amusement in to some sort of childish argument and so the journey through the outskirts of York was invariably done in silence with me in one corner of the back seat and my sister in the other.
Because there was nothing for me to do I used to spend the last part of the journey looking out of the car window. Every week we used to pass the Terry's Chocolate Factory, a big red bricked building with a clock tower. It was a very imposing building and I used to fantasize that it was like the chocolate factory in Roald Dahl's book and I was being given a tour through all the different chocolate rooms ending of course in a room containing nothing but chocolate oranges on trees. I also used to fantasize that my sister was pushed in to a big chocolate machine by the Oompah Loompahs but when I turned 40 I stopped fantasizing about that.
Unfortunately the Terry's Chocolate Factory has now gone, moved I think to some giant production factory somewhere. I'm not sure what has happened to the old factory as I haven't been to York in years but I hope the facade has stayed the same, even if it has probably been turned in to executive flats.
Below is my homemade recipe for what I call Boozy Chocolate Orange Ice Cream. I have to confess there is no chocolate orange in it but it reminds me of chocolate orange, albeit a very potent one. I love eating this at Christmas as it always reminds me of Christmas morning in the days when I used to wake excited at the prospect of what was in my Christmas stocking. Now I wake up on Christmas morning worrying about what time I need to put the turkey in the oven and if I have got enough bread to see us through the holiday. A few scoops of this ice cream takes your cares away.
I hope you enjoy it
Recipe for Boozy Chocolate Orange Ice Cream
450ml Double Cream / 2 Cups Heavy Cream
150ml Full Fat Milk / 1/2 Cup Milk
1 Vanilla Pod
4 Large Egg Yolks
100g / 1/2 Cup Fine Brown Sugar
150g / 5 oz Dark Chocolate (good quality with a minimum of 70% Cocoa)
1 tablespoon Cocoa Powder
30ml / 2 tablespoons Orange Liqueur
1 tablespoon Orange Juice
Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod in to the milk and cream, add half the sugar and heat until the liquid almost reaches boiling point, DO NOT LET IT BOIL. Take off the heat and let it cool.
Mix the remaining sugar in to the egg yolks until all the sugar crystals have dissolved. Reheat the milk and cream, add the egg yolks and sugar and heat gently over a low heat for about ten minutes until the liquid has thickened and easily coats the back of a spoon.
Break the chocolate in to chunks in a bowl, add the cocoa powder and place the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water until the chocolate has completely melted. Add the orange liqueur and orange juice to the melted chocolate and stir.
Add the melted chocolate to the cream and pour in to your Ice Cream Maker, churning as per the manufacturer's instructions. Place the ice cream in the freezer and eat within 1 week.
