International Incident Sundae Party
Melbourne has been humid, humid, humid lately. This has been a weird summer – LOTS of rain and very little of the dry heat that stretches for days, that is more usual of our summers. Thank you La Nina, you can stop now.
Well, at least ice cream is good for any type of heat – dry or humid. So it’s fortunate that the theme for this month’s incident party is “sundae”, to which I’m bringing sesame ice cream, topped with red bean sauce.
I grew up eating black sesame and white sesame in desserts – namely black sesame soup or sesame seed balls. I really wanted to showcase both types, so I made ice cream from both! With the white sesame, I toasted the seeds in a dry frying pan, and then ground them to a paste using a mortar and pestle. If you’re ever grinding sesame seeds in a mortar and pestle, I recommend doing it a small amount at a time. Once I was making sauce for shabu shabu and poured a large amount of sesame into the mortar and pestle – it took me half an hour before I had sesame paste! Extremely painful experience, and it would’ve been much quicker if I had done a small amount at a time.
With the black sesame, I used black sesame powder that I purchased at an Asian grocery store. For both ice creams, I used an ice cream recipe that I’ve made before, that has an Italian egg mousse base that’s folded into whipped cream.
The ice creams turned out well – before freezing, I preferred the white sesame version. It was sweeter and nuttier. However, after freezing I found that I liked the black sesame one more! It was more assertively nutty and fragrant, and the white sesame one turned out creamier and less flavoursome. The black sesame was a touch grainy (since I did add rather a lot of sesame powder!) but after freezing it wasn’t a big issue. But I do think I can improve on it – next time!
And finally, when I was thinking about this sundae, I wondered how I could make it even MORE ASIAN. 😀 Red bean sauce immediately came to mind! So when I was ready to put it together, I spooned over red bean sauce that I had made from purchased red bean paste thinned out with boiling water (with a touch of red food colouring to keep the red colour). It was the perfect topping for my sundae!
Thanks, as always, to Penny for hosting this IIP and see the other delicious creations at the IIP forum.
Black/white sesame ice cream
Adapted from: Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cookery Course
1/4 cup white sesame seeds
3/4 cup black sesame powder (to taste)
4 egg yolks
100g sugar
250ml water
600ml thickened cream, softly whipped
Toast the white sesame seeds in a dry frying pan until fragrant. Grind to a paste in a mortar and pestle – do this a small amount at a time otherwise it will take forever! Set aside.
Place the egg yolks in a bowl/mixer and whisk over high speed until they are pale and fluffy.
In a saucepan, combine the water and sugar and stir over a medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove the spoon and increase the heat until it boils. Let the syrup boil until it reaches the “thread” stage – 106-113°C – it will be quite thick, and when a metal spoon is dipped into it, the drops of syrup will form firm threads.
While whisking the egg yolks, pour the hot syrup on to them.
Spoon out half of the egg yolk mixture and set aside.
To one half of the egg yolk mixture add the white sesame paste and fold together. To the other half, add the black sesame powder. Fold in half of the softly whipped cream to each mixture and pour into separate stainless steel or plastic bowls, cover and freeze.
When serving, remove from the freezer at least 10 minutes before serving.
Serve with red bean sauce, made with red bean paste and thinned with a bit of boiling water.
Kat @CooksJournal
February 20, 2011 @ 11:40 am
Photos are just gorgeous and sesame ice cream .. I usually buy it but this recipe certainly looks manageable. Will have to try it out.
fatbooo
February 20, 2011 @ 11:56 am
OMGosh I drooled over the pictures. Looove black sesame ice cream!! Loved the bit where you said you wanted to make the dessert MORE ASIAN. Haha!
I really admire how great you all are at cooking and creating such innovative fantastic dishes.
Maya@Foodiva's Kitchen
February 20, 2011 @ 12:17 pm
Yumm….I love sesame flavor but I’ve never had it in ice cream before. Your Asianized sundaes are to die for, they look simply amazing!
ck
February 20, 2011 @ 12:40 pm
Absolutely gorgeous post, beautiful photos and styling and I for one would kill to try your sundae. I am not of Asian heritage, but I swear I have an Asian palate! Hehe. Red bean paste,red beans, anything with glutinous rice flour, sesame and black sesame, green tea etc, I am addicted to. I am also a Breadtop addict and couldn’t help but buy a green tea red bean bun and some bean paste sesame balls this morning. That was on top of red bean buns and other things from the beautiful Chinese lady at the Farmer’s Markets yesterday. That’s it, I need help!! I want to jump through the screen and eat one of these so bad! Well done.
Hannah
February 20, 2011 @ 12:47 pm
Oh, BFF! You’ve stolen my heart. Black sesame desserts are one of my favourite things, and I became enamoured with red bean when I was in Japan years ago. I’ve almost never had the latter since, although I regularly nag mum and dad to take me to a particular Japanese restaurant here so that I can have its black sesame ice cream for dessert 🙂
anh
February 20, 2011 @ 1:44 pm
omg this is so yummy!!! I love sesame flavours, and perhaps using white sesame will give a more mellow nutty flavours? 🙂
leaf (the indolent cook)
February 20, 2011 @ 2:23 pm
I love sesame ice cream! Such a delicious-looking sundae.
foodie and the chef
February 20, 2011 @ 10:14 pm
How gorgeous – I only recently tried black sesame ice cream here in Sydney… I just love the idea of the red bean sauce to go with. Cute pics.
msihua
February 20, 2011 @ 10:19 pm
Oh my.. how Asian! I LIKE!!!
Celeste @ Berrytravels
February 20, 2011 @ 11:19 pm
This is making me miss home sooooo much. And by that I mean melbourne!!!
Conor @ HoldtheBeef
February 21, 2011 @ 1:30 am
Red bean sauce is totally MORE ASIAN. It’s Asian to the MAXX.
Super lovely photos as always, I love the little dribble of sauce trying to escape the dish. It is fighting against its Asian-ness? Silly sauce!
Trix
February 21, 2011 @ 2:27 am
I am really digging how these don’t seem overly sweet, and your little sundae cups are the cutest. Very cool that you ground your own sesame paste!
Tammy
February 21, 2011 @ 12:17 pm
This look amazing and I think it’s great that you did your own red bean sauce.
Iron Chef Shellie
February 21, 2011 @ 12:38 pm
mmmm looks amazing Agnes!!
Annette
February 21, 2011 @ 8:45 pm
Looking at those super photos really made me want to eat this one!!! Especially as it is hot, hot here…
mademoiselle délicieuse
February 21, 2011 @ 10:00 pm
I was wondering how the red bean sauce was so, well, red!
Jennifer (Delicieux)
February 22, 2011 @ 12:18 pm
Your sundaes are gorgeous! I LOVE black sesame ice cream, but have yet to make it at home. I will have to try this recipe.
April @ My Food Trail
February 22, 2011 @ 4:38 pm
Looks fab Agnes! I’ve been meaning to try making black sesame ice cream since I love black sesame everything!
Rach
February 23, 2011 @ 1:23 am
Wow that looks good!
Shirley
February 23, 2011 @ 4:32 am
I’m totally new to using sesame in a dessert. Must give that a try.
Cherrie
February 23, 2011 @ 12:14 pm
This looks beautiful Agnes. I love the sound of the red bean sauce
Erwin @ TheLearnerChef
February 24, 2011 @ 8:26 pm
That looks awesome!!! Great photos!
Maria@TheGourmetChallenge
February 25, 2011 @ 8:24 am
hhhmmmm interesting combination. I love sesame seed, so I’m guessing that the ice cream would taste amazing. Love the colour of the red bean sauce….its almost blood like!