Black Sesame (Goma) Ice Cream

I love black sesame ice cream and it has always been one of the flavours that i really want to try making myself since commercial ones tend to always be too bland, too milky and just really lacking the fragrance of black sesame.

However, one of the major problems i encountered was finding black sesame paste. I have black sesame powder but black sesame paste is an absolute must in getting that beautiful charcoal colour and for the wonderful depth of flavour that only black sesame paste can bring.

So i searched online for other recipes that used black sesame paste and see if they mentioned where they got theirs in Singapore. and i came across a blogger who swears by the black sesame paste (pictured below) and it can be found at Sun Lik located at 33 Seah Street. It is a small baking supplies store and each bottle is 100g and cost SGD$6.80. It isn't cheap but definitely worth it!

It also says to not put in the fridge. It's a very thick and difficult to stir paste so putting it in the fridge will make it even more difficult to work with if it's cold.

Ingredients

50g Black Sesame Paste + 1 tbsp sugar
180ml milk
2 egg yolks
60gsugar (i used raw caster sugar)
120ml cream
1 tbsp Black Sesame Powder (remember to sieve!)

Directions

In a bowl, whisk together the black sesame paste and 1 tbsp sugar.
*Well.. if you noticed in the picture, i actually made a mistake and mixed the 60g of sugar into the black sesame paste instead. No worries, no harm done! :)

Heat the milk in a saucepan while whisking the egg yolks and sugar in another bowl.

Slowly, add the warmed milk to the egg yolk mixture and whisk/stir continuously to prevent scrambling the eggs.

Place the mixture back into the saucepan and heat over a low low heat, stirring constantly. When the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, take it off the heat and add it slowly into the black sesame paste sugar mixture while whisking continuously.

Let the mixture cool while stirring occasionally
*This is the lazy method. The proper one should be to sieve it then place it over a bowl of iced water to reduce the temperature.

Now we sieve the mixture, cover the bowl with cling wrap and place in the fridge for as long as you possibly can, but definitely at least until the mixture is completely cold.

In a separate bowl, combine the cream with the sieved ground black sesame seeds.
*I didn't think of sieving it and it had many many clumps so i went through the mixture slowly and mashed the lumps!

Add in the cream mixture to the cold custard from before and pour into the ice cream machine to churn for 20 minutes.

Voila!

Chocolate Ice Cream!

I apologize. I can't seem to find my ice cream scoop and i can't get a decent picture of the ice cream. So trust me when i say this is awesome. Alright?

When making ice cream, we generally have a base custard mixture to which flavours are added in. and this is a really basic recipe for a rich chocolate ice cream.

Ingredients

180ml milk
2 egg yolks
50g caster sugar
70g bittersweet chocolate
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp instant coffee powder
140ml pure cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Heat the milk and vanilla essence.

In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together. Whisk till pale.

Slowly, add in the heated milk while whisking continuously to prevent cooking of the eggs.

Pour the mixture back into the pot and thicken, while stirring constantly over low heat to prevent cooking the eggs as well.

* Should you accidentally scramble the eggs, either sieve the mixture before continuing or use a hand blender to blend it all together. If this happens, and you were intending on making vanillia ice cream, i would suggest that you change the flavour, as it will have a slight flavour of cooked eggs, but if you changed the flavour to something else, the eggy-ness would not be so prominent.

After the mixture thickens, take it off the heat and let it cool slightly. Then add in the chocolate pieces. Stir to ensure that all the chocolate pieces have melted and are well combined.

In a small bowl, combine the cocoa and coffee powder, if using. Add into the chocolate custard mixture and stir to combine.

Sieve the mixture to ensure that you get a smooth creamy ice cream.

The mixture should be relatively cool now. If not, place it over a bowl of ice water to reduce the temperature.

Add in the cream. *Should you feel that the mixture is too thick, add a little more cream. I have made adjustments to this in my recipe but feel free to change it to suit your tastes.

Cover the bowl well and chill in the fridge for as long as you can.

Pour the chilled mixture into the ice cream machine and let it churn for 20 mins.

Ta-Da!

Enjoy!!

**A note about homemade ice cream – From my experience, since this is homemade and it has no weird chemicals and ingredients, this ice cream melts quite fast. So be sure to eat it quick and keep it frozen at all time. Although.. it would make a awesome thick chocolate shake should it melt. hehe.