I was feeling a little adventurous today so I decided to try making homemade tempura ice cream. I found the recipe to be easy so I decided to head out to the grocery. That's when I almost gave up.
The recipe requires the use of Pound Cake - we couldn't find any from the bakery. So I decided to bake my own (well, I actually bought that Betty Crocker Pound Cake ready mix). When we got home, the box recipe used a 9x5 pan which I don't have. Also, we found out that the cake takes at least 48 minutes to cook - again, who waits for dessert? So anyway, I started baking around 8:30pm and we were able to enjoy the tempura around 11pm.
The flavor we were looking for is there, the outer coat was crisp but the batter and bread were overpowering the dessert. I actually had to alter my flour-to-water proportion because the one provided by the recipe was too thick - maybe I should have thinned it out more. The Pound Cake was a little more brown on top than I'd wanted so that made it difficult for me to roll the cake around the ice cream and make the roll tighter. Oh, and next time, I won't be greedy and follow just putting two scoops of green tea ice cream. :)
Although it's not perfect, I can say that this recipe is a good starting point - it has the texture and the flavor that a tempura ice cream should have. I'll try making one tomorrow again and hopefully I'll get the cake and the batter right.
