Mmmm,
bacon. But in ice cream? Surely only a genius or a mad scientist could make that work; fortunately,
Heston Blumenthal is a bit of both, and bacon and egg ice cream is a signature dish of his
Fat Duck Restaurant. I've never visited nor do I own any of his cookbooks (broad hint to any family members reading this), but he's made the recipe available online, and I thought I'd try it out.
The recipe appears in several places (
The Guardian,
Channel4) and there is a
short video you should also watch, where Blumenthal narrates the production & presentation. However, the dish seems to have evolved somewhat, and later versions use
liquid nitrogen or
dry ice to make the ice cream, and it now looks for all the world like scrambled eggs. Accordingly, he serves it with caramelized brioche, which looks like toast, a tomato and red pepper paste that looks like jam, and to wash it down, jellied tea. The last two I thought I would leave to the Fat Duck, but the scrambled-eggs-on-toast look of the first two parts really appealed to me. I've done a bit of cryogenic mixology in the past using
dry ice (the
Color-Changing Martini, and also see
Eyeball Cocktails) and I figured some of these skills might be handy in making this wacky dessert...