Pear frangipane, dark chocolate ice cream and Amarula custard

This is my new recipe for the freshly blogged competition, please follow the link to go and vote for my recipe
http://freshlyblogged.co.za/recipe/pear-frangipane-dark-chocolate-ice-cream-and-amarula-custard/

Inspiration behind this recipe: Decadent dessert – a childhood delight! It's amazing what magic can be created with a few, simple ingredients. This sweet, comforting treat is a nod to nostalgia; I remember helping my granny to make something similar many moons ago.

I'm inspired by the concepts of 'mystery basket' meets 'late-night craving' in this dish. It's super-easy to whip up a delicious pudding with ingredients from your kitchen. While Amarula liqueur, ground almonds and dark chocolate aren't your average store cupboard staples, these simply add a hint of gourmet flavour (they can be substituted with other items for a midnight quick-fix treat).

Frangipane was my favourite dessert as a child. I patiently helped my granny to crush the biscuits for the base and today, while putting together this recipe, so did my daughters.
Sadly, frangipane has fallen out of flavour recently, so a new twist adds modern dining excitement : the pairing of hot, steaming custard with cold, homemade chocolate ice cream.

Pears are a perennial fruit choice in the colder months, so they're an ideal, juicy topping, and they slice through the sticky sweetness too.

Cheers to childhood. Memories are made of this.

Ingredients

For the Amarula custard:

1 cup milk
8 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup Amarula

For the chocolate ice cream:

500ml milk
80g dark chocolate
10 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar

For the pear frangipane:

1 pkt PnP cream crackers
2 Tbsp white sugar
3 Tbsp butter
100g flaked almonds, ground into a powder
2 medium eggs
2 Tbsp cake flour
1/4 cup white sugar
80g butter
2 pears, peeled, cored and sliced

Amarula custard:

Heat up the milk to just below boiling point, remove from the heat, In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar until pale then slowly whisk in the heated milk, return back to a low heat and stir with a wooden spoon until it thickens like custard, then add in the Amarula and leave to cool or serve hot.

Chocolate ice cream:

Heat up the milk to just below boiling point, remove from the heat and add in the chocolate and whisk until combined. In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar until pale then slowly whisk in the chocolate mixture, return back to a low heat and stir with a wooden spoon until it thickens like custard. Leave to cool to room temperature, then place in the fridge until cooled, then in the freezer for about 4 hours. Take it out and blitz in a food processor, repeat this step 3 times, and then leave over night for the ice cream to set.

Best of all is that no ice cream maker is needed for this!

Pear frangipane:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. In a food processor, blitz the cream crackers, 2 Tbsp sugar and 3 Tbsp butter until it resembles wet bread crumbs, this is the base for the frangipane. Line a 23cm tart tin with these crumbs.

Now in the food processor add all the remaining ingredients except for the pears and blitz together, spread this evenly over the crumb base, then slice the pears and arrange them on the almond base.

Bake for 30 minutes.