Mince Pie Ice Cream

Ok so this isn’t really a recipe. It’s more of an idea. A really delicious, staggeringly simple idea! For when you’ve forgotten (!) to make a trifle or have simply run out of energy and are struggling to come up with a suitably festive dessert for New Year’s Eve (or any day around Christmas for that matter). Or for the people who can’t stand the idea of yet another plate of Christmas pudding after yet another enormous carb-heavy dinner. The solution is ice cream. Everyone loves ice-cream! So you take a tub of soft-scoop vanilla ice cream (dairy or non-dairy, doesn’t matter) and whizz dollops of it in a blender for a few seconds just to soften it up. Then you add a few mince pies, or even chunks of leftover christmas pudding, plus a slosh of something boozy, if you like. If you’ve got leftover mincemeat, chuck that in too. It’s like a festive version of cookies’n’cream ice cream. Spoon it back into the ice cream tub and put it back in the freezer, pronto. Et voilà – a chilled Christmassy dessert ready eat whenever the (hungry and lazy) mood strikes. This also works with chocolate ice cream. It’s like Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut in ice-cream form. Oh yes.

Happy New Year everyone – see you all in 2017! x

500ml (1 small tub) soft scoop vanilla (or chocolate) ice cream – I used Swedish Glace, available in just about every supermarket
5 regular-sized mince pies, plus a few extra for sprinkling. I used Waitrose Essentials – £1 for 6 and vegan to boot!

Anything else? A few spoonfuls of mincemeat, Christmas pudding, cranberries, orange zest or a splash of brandy would all work well.

Place the ice cream in a processor for a few seconds to soften/loosen. Add the crumbled mince pies – plus anything else you want to add – and whizz until just combined but still a bit chunky. Quickly spoon the ice cream back into the ice cream tub and put it back in the freezer. Serve garnished with crushed mince pie remnants. (You might as well, really).