Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Recipes

Labneh Ice Cream With Pistachio-Sesame Brittle

Makes about 1¼ quarts (1¼l)

I’ve been eternally fond of Middle Eastern food ever since my hippie-dippie days of spreading hummus on honey-sweetened whole-wheat pita bread topped with alfalfa sprouts. Once I discovered the cookbooks written by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, Anissa Helou, and Claudia Rodin, I realized that Middle Eastern cusine is a spectacular world of vibrant foods seasoned with herbs like za’atar, sumac, and saffron; drizzled with olive oil or nutty tahini; and served with tangy labneh (a heavenly dive into a thick cloud of housemade cheese).

I’ve been fortunate to visit the Middle East, but you can get a taste of the region’s signature flavors just by visiting your nearest Middle Eastern grocer. Most sell labneh, which is soft enough to spread on bread (and is especially delicious with olive oil and za’atar) but is sometimes rolled into tight, bite-size rounds. Because store-bought labneh varies in thickness and richness, for this recipe I advise you to make your own, which is easy.

ICE CREAM

2 1⁄2 cups (620ml) homemade labneh or plain Greek yogurt

1 cup (250ml) heavy cream

6 tablespoons (90ml) good-flavored honey, slightly warmed

1⁄4 cup (50g) sugar

Pinch of kosher or sea salt

PISTACHIO-SESAME BRITTLE

1⁄4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (45g) shelled pistachios

3 tablespoons sesame seeds

1⁄2 cup (100g) sugar

To make the ice cream, whisk together the labneh, cream, honey, sugar, and salt. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator.

To make the pistachio-sesame brittle, line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or grease it lightly with vegetable oil. Mix the pistachios and sesame seeds in a small bowl.

Spread the sugar in a medium, heavy-bottomed skillet and cook over medium heat, watching it carefully. When it begins to liquefy and darken at the edges, use a heatproof spatula to stir it very gently, encouraging the liquefied sugar around the edges to moisten and melt the sugar crystals in the center.

Tilt the pan and stir gently until all the sugar is melted and the caramel begins to smoke. Once it has a deep golden color, remove it from the heat and immediately stir in the nuts and seeds. Scrape the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet and spread it with a spatula into an even layer. Let cool completely. Once cooled, chop the brittle into bite-size pieces with a chef ’s knife. Store in an airtight container until ready to use.

Freeze the labneh mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Reprinted with permission from The Perfect Scoop Revised and Updated, copyright © 2018 by David Lebovitz. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.