This ice cream is simple to make at home with just 4 ingredients and without the need to use an ice cream maker and is ideal for complementing desserts in the autumn and winter seasons.

In my house, we enjoy ice cream all year round, whether it's hot or cold outside. 

Of course, store-bought ice creams are often purchased, usually Ben & Jerry's or Haagen-Dazs. However, sometimes I also like to try making ice cream at home because I have to use my ice cream maker. 

Many of the homemade ice cream recipes do not require machines to be made, and are known as no-churn ice cream since the preparation after ready is poured into a container and placed directly in the freezer until solidified. 

Rum and raisin ice cream is an ice cream classic and is usually prepared with a base of egg yolks, sugar, milk, and cream. In this case, I was inspired by the lovely Mary Berry's recipe (from the book and series "Love to cook") but I made some changes to it, namely reducing the condensed milk and increasing the amount of cream. The result was delicious creamy ice cream with just the right amount of sweetness. 

I usually serve it along other desserts such as crumbles, pies or galettes, pancakes, crepes, or waffles.

The Ingredients

• Cream - are the main element that gives body to the ice cream; as always I only use fresh cream (they don't have any additives). I haven't tried making it with vegetable cream (the kind you can whip), I think it's possible but probably the texture won't be the same since they don't have the same fat content as cow's milk cream.
• Condensed milk - in Mary Berry's recipe a whole can of condensed milk was used, but it was too sweet so I reduced it to about half the amount. It can be replaced with condensed coconut milk.
• Raisins - this ice cream is usually called rum and raisins, but in reality sultanas are used since here in Portugal raisins are bigger, they come from the muscatel grape variety and contain seeds. I also reduced the amount of sultanas to use.
• Rum - I like to use rum in various pastry recipes and it is one of the alcoholic drinks I have at home for this purpose. However, it can be replaced by Port Wine or Madeira Wine.

Rum & raisin icecream recipe

Ingredients

400 ml of cream
200 g of condensed milk
100 g of raisins
50 ml of rum

1. In a small pot or casserole, place the raisins and rum and heat them, removing right as it starts to boil.
2. Leave to rest so that the raisins absorb the liquid and cool down in the meantime.
3. Meanwhile, whip the cream well with the mixer.
4. Add the condensed milk.
5. Reserve in the fridge.
6. When the rum and raisins have cooled, fold these into the mixture (including the rum that has not been absorbed by the raisins).
7. Pour the mixture into a container that can go in the freezer.
8. At the very least, it should be freezing for 12 hours, but ideally, it's better to leave it longer.

Notes on how to make

• For those who are concerned about the alcohol content of this recipe, I remind you that the rum (or other drink you use) is heated, but if you want to ensure that there is no alcohol, just let it boil a little before adding the raisins.
• As raisins are heavier, and they absorb the rum, they are more likely to settle to the bottom of the container when freezing. If you want to avoid this, 30 minutes or 1 hour after starting to freeze, you can stir the cream with a spoon so that the raisins are better distributed, and you can repeat this process as long as the texture of the icecream allows.
• Despite having an ice cream machine, I didn't use it in this recipe; however, whoever wants to use it (to speed up the process) I advise adding the sultanas only at the end and it is probably better to add them to the preparation outside the machine because they can interfere with the movement of the blades (it also depends on the format of the machine used).