Almond Ice-cream

Glace aux Amandes (almond ice cream) teaches the difference between body and accent. The sweet almonds give substance and a soft marzipan roundness; the five bitter almonds give the high, penetrating perfume. Leave them out and the ice says very little.

The old formula assumed a mortar heavy enough to turn freshly skinned nuts into cream and a freezing pail kept moving by kitchen hands. Your food processor makes the same wet paste, and a small ice-cream machine supplies the steady agitation. That brigade scaffolding can go. The twenty-minute hot-milk infusion and the egg-thickened custard stay because they are the dish, with the quantities written as one home churn for eight rather than a dining room full of moulds.

The step that matters most is the custard. Cook it gently to nappe, when it coats the spatula but remains fluid, and never let it boil. Once that pale almond base is properly cooked and thoroughly chilled, the machine has the easy work.