Hello dear readers.

Well it’s been a wee while since my last post as I have been enjoying the luxury of my husband having the school holidays off work.   I have still been busy in the kitchen though and have lots of recipes to write up for you.   First though, I must tell you about a new adventure for me – I have been asked by a company to develop some recipes for them.  I can’t tell you how excited I am about this.  I never imagined doing anything like this when I started this blog!  Let me tell you how it all came about.  Near the end of June I was contacted by the lovely Claire who looks after marketing for the Scottish preserves company Mackays.

She was keen to have some food bloggers develop some recipes using their delicious jams and marmalades.  I checked out their website and found that Mackays was founded in 1938 and is still a family-run business.  They use the finest quality ingredients they can find.  All their strawberries, raspberries and blackcurrants are sourced locally, where the temperate Scottish climate and long summer daylight hours allow fruit to be grown longer and have a stronger flavour.  Their products are still made using traditional methods, in steam-heated copper pans, which themselves are also made locally.   Mackays pride themselves that their range of jams, marmalades, preserves and curds are made in small batches by experienced artisans and that all their products taste homemade.

This all sounded fantastic so I naturally jumped at the chance of a free jar of something to use in my cooking.  I emailed Claire to say I would love to develop a recipe using their Lime Curd and happily she asked me to choose a few more products to have a range to work with.  Email sent and then I forgot all about it until the box arrived the following week.  I wasn’t sure what to expect but thought it might be those cute little jam pots that pop up in B&Bs, so you can imagine my surprise when I opened the box and inside were eight full-sized jars  – whoop – much cooking to be had!

So the first recipe I want to show you continues the summer strawberry theme I’ve had going on in the last few posts.  I wanted to do something special with the Strawberry preserve with Champagne and thought it might work very well in an icecream.

Strawberry Crunch Icecream recipe…

1) Line a 2lb loaf tin with cling film.

2) Slice 400g strawberries.

3) Select the best slices and line the base of the loaf tin (remember these will be the top of your icecream “loaf” when you turn it out).

4) Chop up the remaining strawberries.

5) Crumble three meringue nests.

6) Whip 300ml double cream with 150ml milk.  Stir in 170g Mackays Strawberry preserve with Champagne and then fold in the chopped strawberries & crushed meringue.

7) Use the creamy mixture to top up the loaf tin & then freeze for at least four hours.

8) Turn out the strawberry icecream loaf and remove the cling film (you may need to let it thaw for a few minutes first).

9) Slice your icecream loaf, serve and sit back and listen to much contented munching from all around!

I served this up for dessert after a spicy meal and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you to Mackays for all the delicious products they sent to me.  Watch this space for more #BakingWithMackays recipe ideas.

Vohn

x

Disclaimer: I was sent two jars each of four different products by Mackays and asked to develop some recipes and write a blog post about them.  I was not paid for the recipe development, nor for writing this post, and all ideas and opinions are my own.

Update: I am also entering this into Chris’s Foodie World Cup bloggers challenge, as England are playing today (19th June 2014).