kurkubini

Being a fan of peculiar tastes apart from frozen yogurt I also love unique ice cream flavours! One of my favourite unique ones is Dondurma ice cream. It’s not surprising if we consider that one of it’s basic ingredients is mastic, which I have used and discussed over and over again in previous recipes. This Turkish delicacy is one of the many that have remained in our food culture, in the Northern parts of Greece and more specifically in Thessaloniki, after the many years of Turkish occupation. The second basic ingredient is salep. Not having salep here in the UK and not thinking to ask my Turkish Cypriot friend here, as I found out later she had some, I found similar spices to substitute it.

The process of making it is the same as any other ice cream. The final texture of the ice cream though is a bit different.

Ingredients:
1 litre full fat milk
1/2 cup double cream
2/3 – 1 1/2 cup sugar (depending on how sweet we want it)
2-3 medium mastic crystals
2tsp salep or if we don’t have 1 tsp cornstarch, 1/4 tsp cinnamon,  1/4 tsp clove, bit of cardamon)

We heat up the milk and add the sugar, salep and mastic. We bring to boil and keep boiling until it thickens a bit. We remove from the heat and we let it cool. Once cool we add the double cream and mix well in the mixer bowl. We put in the freezer and remove after 1 hour and a half. We stir it well using the mixer and place it in the freezer for another 1 hour and 45 minutes.  We repeat the process 3 more times and then we let it freeze completely.

We serve with cherry jam or pistachios.

The recipe was a success as it passed two Turkish Cypriot critics that know the taste of the real thing! Will definitely make it again!