Fresh Fig Mascarpone Gelato
September was a really busy month for me as our farmhouse rental was fully booked, we were harvesting the last of our garden vegetables and I was preserving and canning as many as I could tackle, and then it was fig season as well. Fresh figs are in my mind one of the best fresh fruits around, but when they start to ripen, they seem to ripen so quickly that I am picking a basketful every day and then scrambling to find something to do with them.
I made fig jam, fig and apple tarts, and we ate fresh figs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One new recipe I made this year that I just haven’t had time to post yet was this delicious, rich and creamy fig gelato. I searched all over for recipes to try and ended up choosing a recipe from the cookbook The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. I adapted the recipe by using mascarpone cheese in place of the heavy cream along with some milk and ground cinnamon. The gelato turned out really rich and creamy but packed full of fresh fig flavor, exactly what I was hoping for!
Buon Appetito!
Deborah Mele
Fig Mascarpone Gelato
Creamy and rich, this gelato is full of fresh fig flavor.
Ingredients
- 2 Pounds Fresh Figs (Green or Black) About 20 Medium to Large
- 1/2 Cup Water
- 1 Lemon
- 3/4 Cup Sugar
- 1 Cup Mascarpone Cheese At Room Temperature
- 1/2 Cup Milk
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
Instructions
- Remove the hard stems from the figs and coarsely chop.
- Place the figs in a saucepan with the water.
- Zest the lemon and add to the figs and then cook over medium heat until the figs are very tender, about 10 minutes.
- Add the sugar to the fig mixture, stir well, and continue to cook until thick, about 8 minutes.
- Cool to room temperature.
- Place the figs, mascarpone, milk, cinnamon, and two tablespoons lemon juice in a blender and pulse until smooth.
- Freeze until set or use an ice cream machine following manufacturers instructions.
