Sweetcorn Ice Cream?!

Hi all, I know it’s been far too long since my last post but unfortunately there just do not seem to be enough hours in the day. I keep having thoughts while driving about in the van and say to myself “I’ll put that in the blog”, but by the time it comes round to it, something else pops up and it’s gone.

So it’s time for a change of tact. I’m going to go for short and sweet entries for a while and see if that helps matters. When I have a thought, I’ll make a note and write it up as soon as I get the chance.

So here goes. When the Pony and Trap were picked out by the Michelin guide back in January, Mark Taylor asked me in the Bristol Evening Post what it was that I thought got us the accolade. I speculated that it was partly due to the fact we had been raising our game over the year prior by making small but consistent changes doing things like churning our own butter, making our own black pudding and rearing our own pigs that we eventually slaughtered and constructed an 8 course menu from.

Over the past 7 months we’ve continued to make alterations and try and improve the experience in new ways. A good example came last week when I finally took the plunge and bought myself an ice cream maker.

I have wanted to invest for a while but costing a fair few thousand for a top spec bit of kit, I could never really justify it. However, when I stumbled across a small and cheap machine earlier in the month, I couldn’t resist. Buying on impulse, I had bought it with the mind to experiment and try a few things out. I thought that after a spell getting used to it I’d hopefully be able to put some flavours on the menu.

However, little did I know that after one afternoon playing about, the team and I would have created an array of home-made ice creams and sorbets that would be put on the menu that night! We were constructing flavours out of anything we could get our hands on, and after a pretty suspect sweetcorn ice cream, we actually surprised ourselves with some absolute beauties!

In a little over 3 hours we had managed to come up with 7 icy creations including a nice little Strawberry and basil number, a gingerbread treat and a cracking apple sorbet. It was a really creative session and has already added another dimension to our menu. It’s no secret that I want to make as much of what we serve on the menu from scratch and this is another welcome addition to the Pony and Trap.