Ice Cream Festive Pudding

The frozen, fruity, much more Australian climate appropriate, alternative to Boiled Christmas Pudding.

Ice cream, boozy fruit, shortbread and fresh fruit.. utterly delicious!

600 ml cream
375 ml sweetened condensed milk
2 tsp vanilla essence or scraped seeds from 1 vanilla pod
10 shortbread or ginger biscuits
1/2 cup boozy fruit (dried fruit infused with rum/brandy/cointreau or fruit juice and spices)
2 cups fresh fruit (can use tinned if none are available) cherries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries - whatever looks good!
1/2 cup sugar Infused lavender, vanilla, strawberry are all good!
1 pinch salt

Prepare a nice shaped bowl or pudding basin by lining with plastic wrap.
Crush biscuits into largish crumbs/small chunks.
Place 1/2 the fruit and the sugar in a small saucepan on low heat and stew for 15 - 20mins until syrupy.
Allow to cool completely (place in freezer if taking too long)
Drain fruit, reserving the syrup.
Whip cream to soft peaks along with the salt.
Add sweetened condensed milk and vanilla seeds/essence and stir until combined.
Gently stir in soaked dried fruit, biscuit crumbs and drained syrupy fruit
Pour into prepared pudding bowl, cover top with plastic wrap.
Freeze until needed.
To serve
Invert bowl over a plate
Sprinkle with fresh fruit and drizzle with syrup.

When serving, remember that home made icecream freezes harder than bought icecream, so allow some time on the bench for it to 'warm up' a bit.

This icecream pudding goes beautifully served with pistachio and cranberry shortbreads on the side.

You can also use this recipe to make fabulous icecream sandwiches!