Lemon Meringue Ice Cream Sandwich - Chef Recipe by Sam Moore.

Ingredients

Lemon-scented shortbread biscuit base:

125g unsalted butter
60g brown sugar
175g plain flour
50g almond meal
4g salt
1 whole zested lemon

Lemon meringue pie ice cream base:

10 whole free-range eggs
2 free-range egg yolks
300mL thickened cream
300g caster sugar
20g zested lemon
280g lemon juice

Italian meringue:

200g caster sugar
130g egg whites (room temperature)
80g lemon juice
80g water

Method

Ice cream base:

Pre-heat your combi oven to 130 C.

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and whisk to incorporate. Transfer mixture to a Thermomix speed setting 2.5 and heat 60 C and cook for 12 minutes, or until the internal temperature of liquid has reached 60 C.

Pass through fine chinos into a gastronome tray and bake at 130 C for 20 minutes. Your mixture should be just set and slightly curdled.

At this point blow torch the top of the set curd to caramelise all over. Transfer back to the Thermomix and blend on high speed.
Pass through fine chinos. Your mixture should now look like a smooth thick curd. Transfer the curd to a 5L ice cream machine and churn for around 30-40 minutes.

Italian meringue:

Set up a small stand-up mixer like a kitchen aid and with whisl attachment, add egg white to the bowl to bring up to room temperature.

Meanwhile in a medium-sized saucepan add sugar, lemon juice and water. Make sure you clean the pan of any excess sugar that has formed on the side, as this will cause your mixture to crystallise.

Put the saucepan on medium heat and heat the liquid to 121 C. At around 115 C when the liquid starts bubbling and almost forming caramel, turn on kitchen aid full speed to whip the egg whites.

Once your liquid on the stove reaches 121 C slowly start to pour into the kitchen aid mixing bowl. Keep on full speed for around 6 minutes, or until the mixture looks luxurious and glossy.

Fold 150g of the Italian meringue into the ice cream base and set in a gastronome tray and place in the freezer.

Once set take a 10 cm cookie cutter and cut 8 discs of lemon meringue pie ice cream.

Transfer back to the freezer in an airtight container until ready to assemble.

Lemon biscuit base:

Pre-heat oven to 180 C.

In a stand-up mixer with a paddle attachment, mix together butter, flour, almond meal and salt on a medium speed until a sand-like texture has formed (3-4 minutes).

Add in the brown sugar and lemon zest. Mix until fully combined. This will form a really soft dough with similar appearance to couscous pearls.

Next tip the loose dough out onto a work surface and knead for about 2 minutes to form a dough ball.
Wrap the dough in Clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Remove the dough from the fridge, leave for 30 minutes to bring back to room temperature. Roll your dough between two sheets of baking paper to 0.5 cm thick and cut with a 10 cm cookie cutter, working very carefully lift the dough on baking paper onto a baking tray.

Bake at 160 C for around 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Assemble:

Take ice cream discs from the freezer and sandwich them together. Leave at room temperature for 5 minutes and then serve immediately.

Note: If you don’t have a Thermomix, the recipe can be made over a bain-marie, or on the stove.

Photo Credits: Kristoffer Paulsen