Baobab Ice Cream Anyone?

One of the reasons that ice cream is such a delicious food is that it can be made with so many different ingredients - from all kinds of fruit to chocolate, wine, tea, coffee and lots more. The biggest category of ingredients has to be that of fruit. Standard popular fruits such as the strawberry are great for making ice cream that's deliciously creamy; the more citrus fruits lend themselves better to making ideal, refreshing sorbets.

I'm always on the look-out for unusual fruits to try in ice cream. Last year I made strasberry ice cream, publishing the first Internet ice cream recipe ever for that fruit - not often you get to achieve a 'world first'! It was such a strong tasting, aromatic ice cream that I can't wait to get my hands on some more strasberries this year when they are in season.

My mother recently sent me a newspaper cutting about .... the Baobab. I had never heard of the word before and yet it sounds like an astonishingly unusual and also beneficial fruit. Here's what the article claims about the Baobab tree:

• it sometimes referred to as 'the upside-down tree' because of its root-like branches
• it can live for up to 500 years with some living as long as 2,000 years
• it has been known to grow up to a height of as much as 98 feet
• hollowed out baobab trees in Africa are sometimes used as shops and barns
• the baobab fruit looks like a coconut on the outside
• its white pulp is powdery with a cheese-like texture
• the pulp tastes slightly sour
• it is high in iron, potassium and anti-oxidants
• it is native to Africa
• it has been revered in Africa for thousands of years
• only specially trained people are allowed to climb the baobab tree to collect its fruit
• in some parts of East Africa it is sold as a type of sweet with a red, sugar coating

The nutritious properties of the baobab's pulp apparently make it ideal as an ingredient for cereal bars and smoothies and it is now being imported into the EU for the very first time for that purpose.

So we have a new fruit to experiment with - and enjoy. I have yet to see any baobab fruit pulp in my local supermarket but I will keep looking as I would love to try some in an ice cream recipe. As and when I do you'll hear about it on this blog .... so watch this space!