A lovely seasonal ice cream that doesn’t require an ice cream maker and only takes 5 minutes to assemble – plus freezing time of course.

Serve it alone, perhaps with a sprinkle of praline (instructions for making praline below) or with a traditional Thanksgiving dessert such as pecan pie.

Dulce-de-leche is available in most good supermarkets in cans but if you can’t find it, take a can of regular condensed milk and boil it in a large pan of water for 2 hrs. One cooled, you’ll have a wonderful caramel that works beautifully with desserts such as banoffee pie, etc.

Pumpkin Dulce-de-Leche Ice Cream with Hazelnut Praline

EASY PUMPKIN DULCE-DE-LECHE ICE CREAM

(makes 10 good scoops)

Ingredients:

1 cup (240ml) of heavy cream, chilled

one 14 oz (400g) can of dulce de leche (or home-made, see above)

3/4 cup (180ml) of pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

A pinch of salt

Praline topping (instructions below)

Action:

Chill a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan in the freezer.

In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, dulce-de-leche, vanilla, cinnamon and salt .

In a separate bowl, beat the cream until it forms stiff peaks. Fold one third into the pumpkin mixture to lighten it, then gently fold in the remaining cream until it’s thoroughly combined.

Transfer the mixture to the chilled loaf pan, cover the surface with cling film, wrap in foil and freeze overnight before serving.

To make Praline:

In a heavy (preferably cast-iron) pan, combine equal quantities of whole raw hazelnuts (or almonds, pistachios, etc) and white sugar. Melt the sugar over a very low heat. The nuts will start to smell a bit toasty. This takes a while so don’t be tempted to crank up the heat.

Eventually the sugar will become a deep golden color and runny. When it reaches the runny stage, quickly pour the entire contents onto a large greased cookie sheet and allow it to cool and harden.

Once it’s hard, break it into pieces and grind it in a processor until you have a fine powder, or bash it with a rolling pin in a sealed plastic bag until you have very small shards – I keep both types in my freezer in little airtight containers.

You don’t need to defrost praline to use it. The shattered variety adds a lovely crunch to ice cream or as cake topping and the fine powdered praline is perfect for sweetening whipped cream or mixed into chocolate ganache for a decadent little truffle…that sort of thing.