Real Sakura Ice Cream Recipe

My real sakura ice cream recipe uses a specialist ingredient from Japan, but don't worry – I'll tell you where to get it online.

I've made several sakura recipes in the past, but I've usually used soluble sakura leaf powder. This is a near-colourless powder, so I had to add in pink food colouring for that cherry blossom look. Although it's made with the leaf rather than the blossom, it tastes almost identical.

When I hopped online to order some more of it last month, I noticed a new ingredient on the website: W Sakura Plus sakura puree. It's made with the blossom itself rather than the leaf, so it's already got plenty of natural colour.

Of course I bought some of it, and the first thing I'm using it in is this real sakura ice cream. The puree, like the powder, is very concentrated and tangy-salty (because both the leaves and flowers are pickled). So after a bit of experimentation with quantities, I managed to develop a delicious cherry blossom ice cream recipe with plenty of floral sakura flavour, and a touch of that signature salty-tangy note that the blossoms carry without it being overpowering.

You can also watch me make my sakura ice cream on YouTube:

Ready? Let's go.

Ingredients:

150ml double cream
200ml full fat milk
30g sakura puree
3 egg yolks
1/3 tsp cornflour
75g caster sugar

Method:

1. In a small saucepan, whisk the double cream, milk and sakura puree together, and set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks, cornflour and caster sugar together until well combined.

3. Place your saucepan on the hob and heat until steaming and almost bubbling, stirring occasionally.

4. Pour half of the hot cream over your egg yolk mixture, stirring the yolks vigorously and continuously. Then add the egg yolk mixture back to the pan with the rest of the hot cream, stirring the cream mixture well.

5. Return to the hob on a medium heat, and, while continuously stirring, cook until the mixture's enough to coat the back of a spoon.

6. Remove from the heat and pour into a bowl. To cool the mixture, place this bowl in a bigger bowl that's been filled with ice, taking care not to get any ice or water in your actual bowl of sakura ice cream mixture. While it's cooling, put a freezer-friendly container in the freezer to chill.

7. When completely cooled freeze in your ice cream maker according to its instructions. You can also put it in a container and pop it in the fridge, taking it out every hour to whisk, instead of using an ice cream maker. But an ice cream machine will produce the smoothest results.

8. If you've used an ice cream maker, scoop it into your pre-chilled container, and pop in the freezer to firm up even more for about an hour before serving.

Enjoy, and have fun.