Garlic lovers' recipes - Garlic Honey Ice Cream

I love garlic, as is clear from my blog's moniker, but I was a little scared of the recipe for Garlic Honey Ice cream in
The Garlic Book.

However, that didn't stop me from trying it a couple summers ago.

This is a good recipe because it's well-flavored with garlic, but the garlic is not overpowering. Most recipes call for poaching the cloves in the cream, then pureeing the mixture. But, in this recipe, you steep the cloves in honey, then remove them before you make the ice cream. So there's a distinctive, yet mild, garlic flavor.

The other cool thing about this recipe is its texture. Using the honey rather than the sugar to sweeten the ice cream makes it super-smooth. There's no grittiness from undissolved or recrystallized sugar granules.

The family members I was able to persuade into trying it couldn't identify the odd flavor of the ice cream as garlic right away. And my mother, God bless her, liked it well enough that she went back for seconds the next day.

I can't post the actual recipe here, because it's copyrighted, but you can buy a copy of The Garlic Book on Amazon.com. You could also try to make up your own recipe from the basic method I've outlined above, if that's your cup of tea, or, er, clove of garlic.

The book seems to be out of print, so you may need to check a used bookstore to get a copy, but it's worth buying for its other garlic recipes. There's a great garlic bread, a garlic and bread sauce, and chocolate-covered garlic. The cloves are poached in red wine and sugar to make them sweeter before they are enrobed in chocolate.

If you do try the recipe, I'd love to hear what you and your friends think of it. If you can convince your friends to try some. (It's not that strong a garlic flavor. Really. The coldness of the ice cream also mutes the flavors somewhat.)