Celebrate a feijoa glut by making this seasonally delicious ice cream — you’ll make it year after year. 

Words and photo: Extract from Kai: Food stories and recipes from my family table

Making feijoa ice cream with my cousins is something of a tradition. We first made it back in standard three (about 9 years old), using a recipe from the School Journal. Every year now we make a batch of this when the feijoas are dropping, and even my cousin who now lives in Australia and can’t get feijoas from a tree, still buys them especially for this treat (at an exorbitant price). I’m so thankful that we have a few backyard feijoa trees, but if you don’t, you will often come across school kids selling bags of them at their front gate.

Makes approx 2 litres

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs, separated
1 can (395g) sweetened condensed milk
2 cups feijoa flesh, puréed
2 tbsp lime or lemon juice
1 cup (250ml) cream

METHOD

Using an electric beater, beat the egg yolks with a steady drizzle of condensed milk until pale and creamy — about 3–4 minutes. Add the feijoa purée and lime or lemon juice and beat until combined.

Note: you can reserve some of the feijoa purée to swirl through the ice cream at the end, but be aware it will freeze harder than the ice cream due to the higher water content.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream until thick. In another bowl, and with clean beaters, beat the egg whites until stiff. Carefully fold the whipped cream and then the egg whites into the condensed milk feijoa mixture until just combined.

Pour into a freezer-safe container with lid (around 2-litre capacity), swirl through reserved feijoa purée, if desired, and freeze for at least 5 hours or until set. Leave the ice cream out of the freezer for 5 minutes to soften before serving.

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Kai: Food stories and recipes from my family table, by Christall Lowe, photography by Christall Lowe, published by Bateman Books, RRP $59.99, Release date 7 November 2022.