Apologies for being very slack with updating the blog in the past month, I returned home to New Zealand, the land of the long white cloud, for a couple of weeks. Then when I got back I have been flat chat shooting weddings, so simply haven't had the time. I went to New Zealand to go to my nephews 1st Birthday who I had never met, so thought it was time I went over. He is so adorable, one very cute baby.
I had such a wonderful time in New Zealand, I always feel like I'm returning home when I go there, the country side is so lush and green. I get to catch up with all my friends and family, and eat some amazing food.
Whenever I return to New Zealand I live on ice cream for the entire time, so much so that my Uncle stocks up when he knows I will be in town. He went out and brought 3 tubs and I showed up with 1 so we had 4, 2 litter tubs to get through. Yep thats right 8 litters of ice cream. Good thing ice cream is my favourite food.
So I thought it fitting that for the first recipe I posted on my return would be a kiwi classic, Hokey Pokey Ice Cream!!! For those of you that think hokey pokey is a dance (my boyfriend included) where have you been living? Obviously not in New Zealand! It is the greatest ice cream in the world!! Hokey Pokey is what most people would know as honey comb, and when you put it in to ice cream its like a marriage made in heaven.
To make these little chunks of gold only requires 3 ingredients, its one of the easiest recipes. You could coat the Hokey Pokey in chocolate and make your own home make crunchies or violent crumbles, but I think its best in ice cream.
Hokey Pokey
5 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
1 teaspoon of baking soda
Place the sugar and golden syrup into a saucepan, stir occasionally until it starts to boil. Boil for 5 minutes stir constantly so the sugar doesn't burn. Remove from the heat and add the baking soda. Stir it in quickly, the mixture will expand very rapidly. Pour into a prepare lined tray, and leave for 20 minutes to go hard.
Once it has cooled chop the hokey pokey into small pieces, and place in an air tight container.
Vanilla Ice Cream
4 eggs
2/3 cup of sugar
1 cup of milk
4 cups of thickened cream
Place the eggs and sugar into a bowl, and beat on high with an electric beater until the mixture becomes light and fluffy. Reduce the speed and slowly add the milk and cream until incorporate.
Either place in an ice cream machine, or do what I did and place the bowl in the freezer for 2 hours, then remove and whisk the mixture every hour, returning to the freezer, until the mixture becomes thick. Then place the hokey pokey in the mixture and stir through. Then leave to freeze.
This is an awesome scoop that I found at a little shop called Finders Keepers it in a little town called Clive thats in between Hastings and Napier on the North Island of NZ. If you pass be sure to drop in they have some amazing little treasures, the store is set out so well that it makes it easy to find what your after.
I brought a lot of stuff from them while I was there but have to wait until my Parents return to Oz as it wouldn't all fit in my suit case, and I had a limit of 23 kg. My Parents are coming back on a ship so bonus no weight limit. Mum has even had to find another suit case to fit all my wonderful junk into.
Below is a few of the pieces I brought on my driving adventure with my Mum through New Zealand's North Island.
The little edmonds tin and sandwich press was kindly given to me by my brothers God father, we went rummaging through his garage and found these great treasures.
