Greedy Girl : Jackfruit Grapenut Ice-cream

Call me the Dairy Queen

This very large tropical fruit is now a delicious creamy ice-cream bursting with jackfruit flavor and filled with crunchy grape-nuts for added texture. Just opening the quart container, the smell of the jackfruit hits you as if you were eating the raw fruit. The fruit has been perfectly captured in this ice-cream.

Where do I start with Jackfruit? Its scent is obnoxious, dominating every other scent in the room. It’s a fruit you either love or hate. I love it, it smells very sweet and taste as sweet as it smells. However the persons who hate it describe the smell as being stink not sweet. There is no substitution for jackfruit it’s extremely special in terms of its flavor and smell, very distinct you either have it or you don’t.

I tried two methods to extract the flavor of the jackfruit into the milk. First I tried cooking it and blending it with the milk, but I realized the heat from cooking the actual fruit does not intensify the flavors similar to blue berries and strawberries, it actually make the flavor weaker. I realized I would have to blend the raw fruit with the milk in order to infuse the flavor. And since the milk is cooked I used a large portion of jackfruit to combat that addition of heat.

I have been thinking really hard about how I would describe the flavor of jackfruit or the jackfruit ice-cream to someone who has never had it. The flavor of the ice-cream is reminiscent of a very intensely flavored vanilla ice-cream, just more floral and extremely sweet smelling. It’s a flavor that uses both your sense of taste and smell at the same time. It’s like yours tasting it and smelling it at the same time (so weird) I’m not kidding jackfruit is very overpowering; I totally understand why some persons hate it. My mother adores it. We have a huge tree in our yard. The fruit is one that needs to be shared because it’s massive. Every time we pick one it’s quite hard at times to find persons to share it with since many don’t like it. However I have a feeling that they would like the ice-cream!

Ingredients (printable recipe)

Jeni's ice-cream base

2 cup Milk

1 ¼ cup Cream

2/3 cup Sugar
2 tablespoon Corn syrup

3 table spoon Cream cheese

1 table spoon plus 1 teaspoon Corn starch
2 tablespoon milk

added

1 cup grape-nut

3 cups jackfruit

Instructions

In a dish make the cornstarch slurry by combining the corn starch and 2 tablespoon milk
In a separate bowl lightly whisk the cream cheese and salt
Combine the jackfruit and milk into a blender and blend until smooth
In a pot bring to boil the cream, jackfruit-milk, sugar and corn syrup for 4 minutes exactly
Once it’s been boiling for four minutes remove from the heat and stir in the cornstarch slurry
Place back on the heat and stir allowing it to slightly thicken for a minute
Pour the hot milk mixture into the bowl of cream cheese to dissolve it and remove lumps
Pour contents into a zip lock bag
Prepare a bowl filled with ice
Place the zip lock bags in the ice bath and allow the mixture to completely cool
Optional: Before churning strain the mixture in a cheese cloth for a smoother consistency
Churn the milk mixtures in an ice-cream maker
As the cycle is nearing completion add the grape-nuts to the ice-cream maker
Pour the contents into the loaf pan
Press down parchment paper on the top surface of the ice-cream and allow it to harden for at least 4 hours in the freezer.