Avocado & Lime Ice-Cream!

Now depending how much you like avocado you'll either be going 'yeargh' and thinking I've taken leave of my senses at the moment, or going 'ooh - interesting concept' or falling somewhere in-between in a mildly puzzled kinda way.  The first time I saw mention of avocado ice-cream on the CSH forum I fell into this final category, despite being a very definite avocado devotee.  I just didn't see it as an ice-cream; or for that matter as a sweet based item of any kind.  I eat my avocado with sour cream and a dash of paprika, or old school with prawns or smoked salmon, or once as a starter in a *pub grilled with goats cheese melted over the top or just plain with a dash of lemon or lime juice and a spoon.  Whichever way most certainly it's a savoury item in my head.  [Totally off topic but does anyone else (and you may have to be fairly specifically of my age group + cultural background here) find that whenever yourself / anyone else says 'in my head' the Cranberries song 'Zombie' pops unbidden into your mind and an overwhelming compunction to sing 'in my head, in my head, in my head, zombie, zombie, zombie' comes over you?  No?  Just me then.  [And yes - I know it's 'in your head' in the song]]  Anyway, to haul this back on track - ice-cream - of the avocado variety.  Having heard about it I found that the more I thought about it the more it a) sounded like a good idea and b) I wanted to try it out myself.  So...having followed back from the original link posted to the David Lebovitz book 'The Perfect Scoop' it came from and having taken a days leave yesterday [it's soooo quiet at work at the moment] I decided to give it a go for myself so here it is - my version tweaked with extra lime and 'English-ified' measurements.  :-)  (The original recipe is USA-centric with cup measurements.)  As an aside if you shop for all your ingredients in Aldi when they have the avocados on special at 29p each as I did, this works out pretty cheap too!

Avocado & Lime Ice-Cream

3 ripe avocados
150g sugar
250ml sour cream
125ml double cream
2 tbsp lime juice
pinch salt

Cut the avocados open and de-stone.
Scoop the flesh out into a blender.
Add all the other ingredients and blend until smooth.  if you have no FP/blender stick them all in a bowl and use a stick blender.
Pour into a freezable plastic container and chuck in the freezer.  (For reference this made just under 800ml for me - will vary depending on the size of your avocados though.)  It's a beautiful light shade of green here.

At this point you will taste it and probably think it's way too sweet but fret not!  Frozen foods impact on your taste buds far less so when making ice-cream / sorbet you need to take this into account and add more flavour and more sugar than you would otherwise.  [Incidentally I presume this is why revoltingly awful lagers like Fosters sell themselves in extra-chilled versions now - so no-one can taste how dire they really are.  That's just my opinion though...]
Over the next few hours I took my ice-cream out of the freezer a couple of times and stirred it round with a fork to 'break up the crystals' as approved ice-cream making methodology seems to suggest but after that I went to bed so it was left to it's own devices.  TBH I'm not sure if that stirring stuff is only for 'proper' ice-cream recipes with egg and stuff in?  I've only made one other ice-cream recipe before and it's even simpler than this one.  :-)
With eager anticipation then I pulled the container from the freezer this morning to test the finished product.  Firstly - it freezes pretty solid - I think like Haagen Dazs recommend it's one that needs to be pulled out 10 mins before serving to soften up slightly.
Secondly - it's absolutely nom-alicious!!  I really really rate this.  From being fairly sceptical at the original idea to thinking the avocado was going to be drowned out by the sweetness (or possible even my addition of extra lime) when I was making it I am now totally converted.  It's lovely stuff.  Very rich as you'd expect with so much cream in it so you only need a little but then tbh avocado and lime is more of a grown up flavour for serving a small portion in a pretty bowl than it is a kids style dessert.  I can picture this in chic simple white tubular dishes on a gorgeous wooden platter at a gastro type pub or similar.

I also think it could safely be left a little bit less smooth when blending as the odd tiny bit of avocado flesh would work here.  If you like avocado that is.  I think avocado is one of those things you either really do get on with or you really don't. I think I read first in Adrian Mole many years ago that it's considered by some people to have a consistency a little akin to that of soap.  I don't agree but I do see where people may be coming from with that observation.  It's certainly an individual in the fruit world!
*The pub in question was The Coventry Arms in Dorset, lovely 15th C riverside place complete with mummified cat in a glass case on the wall.  It was found bricked into the walls during refurb' work some years ago and is believed to have been shut in for good luck when the building originally went up.  Not good luck for the cat evidently!  This pub has been a perennial favourite of my family and seems to have remained in good hands judging from the internet reviews.  Give it a try  if you're in the area - they were always good for seafood in particular.