When you’ve never cooked with truffles before, other than suspect “truffle oil” which may or may not include any actual truffle at all, you have to use your wits and ingenuity when planning, perhaps rashly, to make truffle ice cream from a recipe you’ve invented yourself. First decision? That’s easy: where to start?

The starting point is my basic French-style custard ice cream base, which I have used several times in variations, from my cardamom orange ice cream to prickly pear, orange blossom, Cola-caramel, and vanilla ice cream with Pears Belle Hélêne. But this time, instead of the various flavours such as prickly pears or cardamom, I would start by making a truffle syrup.

I found myself in Rosebank, Joburg, recently and, by the recommendation of the redoubtable Jenny Crwys-Williams, walked into The Pantry, David Higgs’ brilliant grocery store which, cleverly, combines a convenience store with high-end food shopping. So you can pick up your dishwashing liquid and hair products along with your fancy Asian condiments, freshly baked bread and sundry cooked food. And, right in front of me when I walked in, truffles. Black summer truffles. There was no way I could ignore them; I’m a food writer, I publish five or six new recipes every week. I had to buy them, learn how to cook with them, and share all that with you.

Yes, most of us cannot afford them (this little jar of two truffles cost R350), and that includes me. Anyway, I couldn’t resist and here we are, with one truffle recipe behind me and one truffle and two-thirds of another left in the jar. Because that’s how much I used, both for the truffle syrup and a few tiny shavings for garnish when friends came around.

It’s extraordinary just to open the little jar. The flavour doesn’t creep up on you. It overwhelms you, has you sighing with delight and aching to get at them. But truffle, like saffron, has to be used with circumspection. It’s the best pantry illustration of less is more.

Black summer truffles. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

How much to use for the syrup which would, in turn, lend the truffle flavour to the ice cream? I could only assess that by adding a little more, then a tiny bit more, truffle to the syrup, give it time for the flavours to seep into the sugar water, and decide when it was the optimum moment to say to myself: stop. That’s enough. Step away from the pot.

Of the two truffles in the jar, I used a third of the smaller one. I would say this amounts to around about a heaped teaspoon of truffle shavings, but rather go by taste and decide for yourself when there’s enough in the syrup. Bear in mind too that you’ve paid a fortune for them and might want to get as much for the price as you can. The rest can return to the jar (in which they were immersed in lightly salted water) and be refrigerated. (Note that in the shop, sealed, they were on a shelf, not in a fridge.)

To buy truffles, you’d be best served by traipsing around fancy food stores, or look for them online. Try The Truffle Kitchen, Woodford Truffles, Sabatino at YuppieChef or Italian Deli or, if you’re in Joburg, pop into Pantry by Marble in Rosebank. In Cape Town, try the French Market at Gardens Centre.

(Makes about 8 scoops)

Ingredients

Yolks of 6 large eggs

½ cup castor sugar

¼ cup black truffle syrup (recipe below)

310 ml (a cup and a quarter) full cream milk

430 ml (a cup and three quarters) cream

¼ tsp salt

Method

For black truffle syrup, simmer ¼ cup of water with ¼ cup sugar, add a few shavings of black truffle, and simmer gently until reduced by half, leaving you with ¼ cup of black truffle syrup. Taste, and decide whether it needs more truffle shavings. The quantity I added in all was about a third of a small truffle, or 1 heaped teaspoon. Leave it to cool to room temperature. Leave the shavings of truffle in to further flavour the ice cream as you make it.

Beat the egg yolks with ½ cup castor sugar until creamed and pale. Set aside.

Put the cream, milk, black truffle syrup (leaving the tiny shavings in) and a little salt in a pot on a low heat and simmer while stirring until incorporated. It must not boil.

Pour this in a thin stream into the bowl with the creamed eggs and sugar, very slowly to begin with, stirring continuously.

Return to the pot and stir on a low heat until it thickens and can coat the back of a spoon. Do not let it boil.

Pour into a metal container, cool to room temperature, and freeze. Serve it garnished with a few truffle shavings if you’re feeling generous. Do get some friends around; this is one to savour and to show off. My friends were very, very happy with the result. DM/TGIFood

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Champion 2021. His book, foodSTUFF, is available in the DM Shop. Buy it here. 

Mervyn Gers Ceramics supplies dinnerware for the styling of some TGIFood shoots. For more information, click here.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks. Share your versions of his recipes with him on Instagram and he’ll see them and respond.