4-ingredient non-churn ginger ice-cream

Dessert is tricky when throwing dinner parties in California, especially after New Year, when people decided to go to all sorts of diets, including but not limited to all-protein diet, nothing-but-carbs diet, no-exercise-just-drink-water diet, mid-Florida-bikini-diet, South-Texas-cowboy and so on and forth. For me, dessert is sort of like the ex that you still have feelings for. We all kind of wish that the person is not there, but wag our tails vehemently when he/she finally appears. Don’t get me wrong – I am all about rewarding myself with something sweet after tirelessly finishing a heavy meal. But, I am never a big fan of a tooth-achingly sweet dessert that will make me full to a point of utter regret. I have done this before and it was not fun.

 
I believe everything in life is all balance, and one-dimensional Mr. sweet-all-the-time will bore me in two bites. What I want in my ideal dessert is a sharp contrast of sweet with other strong and exciting flavors. This is exactly what this non-churn ginger ice cream delivers – the cold and sugary cream is balanced out well with warm and spicy ginger. When you take a spoonful, you are initially focused on the satisfying sweet and cool sensation, immediately followed by citrusy spiciness from the ginger at the back of the mouth. Eating this ginger ice-cream sort of feels like sucking on reversed sour-patch kids, except that in this case, I can first appreciate tamed sweetness, before savoring a tad-bit-more dangerous spicy warmth.

If I can slurp on a bowl full of ginger ice cream on my couch while watching 30 Rock, I say my life cannot be any more perfect. Drama and exes - optional.

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ cups of heavy cream
• ½ of 14-ounce can of condensed milk
• 1-2 tablespoons of grated ginger (make sure to read the instructions below)
• ¼ cup of ginger tea syrup (I use Haioreum brand)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of ginger powder

     Makes about 1 Quart

Directions

Whisk the heavy cream until the white peaks softly stay upright on the cream surface. Please do not over whip the cream - what you want is a soft cradling mountain rather than a hard unyielding white fat pile.If you are whisking by hand yet you have a strong aversion towards any physical labor like me, whisk on top of cold water to speed up the process.

Fold in the condensed milk gently with a spatula. Pour in the ginger tea syrup, ginger powder and grated ginger, and whisk again lightly until everything is combined. 

Note on ginger: I like to skin my ginger using a teaspoon, and freeze it before grating it. You will not only find the process a lot less cumbersome, but also be rewarded with spicy snow rather than fibrous wet mush. I recommend a minimum of one tablespoon, but if you are a daredevil and like to put more, please do not let me stop you.

Pour the smooth cream into a 4-cup (or 950 ml) glass Tupperware, and chill for at least 6 hours or overnight. I like to eat mine with even more drizzle of ginger tea syrup. The good thing about this recipe is that you don’t have to leave the ice-cream out to soften before serving.