This is a good base recipe for any ice cream flavour you can dream up. Omit the almonds and cherries and replace with chunks of ripe peach, or fresh crushed strawberries, or toasted hazelnuts and Frangelico, or even drizzle some melted chocolate in at the last minute to create a chocolate chip ice cream. Do whatever takes your fancy.

Makes: 1 litre
Serves: 8
Prep: 10 minutes + churning
Cook: 15 minutes 

Ingredients:
420ml whole milk

500ml cream

220g caster sugar

4 large egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

2 tbsp amaretto or kirsch

65g toasted slivered almonds

400g fresh pitted or frozen sour cherries

Method:

• Combine the milk, half the cream, the sugar and a pinch of salt in a saucepan over a medium–low heat. Warm until scalded and small bubbles appear on the edge of the pan.
• To a bowl, add the remaining cream. Set a fine-mesh sieve on top of the bowl, then set aside.
• Place the egg yolks in a mixing bowl and whisk until smooth. When your milk mixture has scalded, begin ladling it into the eggs while still hot, whisking with the opposite hand. Pour the whole mixture back into the pan and cook over a low heat, stirring continuously with a rubber spatula and making sure to scrape the bottom and side of the pan.
• When the mixture is visibly thickened and coats the back of a spoon (just before it begins to simmer and curdle the eggs), pour it through the sieve into the bowl with the cream to stop the cooking process.
• Mix to combine, then add the vanilla, almond extract and alcohol.
• Refrigerate until cold, then freeze according to your ice-cream maker’s instructions.
• Add the nuts and cherries to the ice cream about 5 minutes before it has finished churning in the machine.

Adapted from Always Add Lemon (Hardie Grant)