Lavender is such a lovely, colourful plant. Easy to grow and great for bees, it also has a beautiful flavour to suit sweet and savoury recipes.

This lavender and vanilla ice cream has soothing, subtle flavours, perfect for a summer's day.

The best flowers for culinary use are from the Lavandula angustifolia varieties, known as the English Lavenders. Dutch lavenders, L. x intermedia, have more camphor in them, which is both unpalatable and bad for you to eat in quantity, although the amount that would be present in this recipe is much too low to harm you if you really wanted to try, or used the wrong variety by accident.

Lavender and Vanilla Ice Cream, photographed yesterday in my kitchen. It was never seen again.

Ingredients:

• 425ml Full Fat Milk
• 425ml Double Cream
• 180g Caster Sugar
• 6 Egg Yolks
• 50g Liquid Glucose
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract or Essence
• 5 lavender flowers broken down into petals (or 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh lavender leaves)

Method:

1. Heat the milk, cream, vanilla and lavender in a pan
2. Separately, cream the sugar & eggs together
3. Pour the heated cream mix over the creamed mixture
4. Add the liquid glucose
5. Return to the  heat and gently cook the mixture until slightly thickened (coats the back of the spoon)
6. Pass the mixture into a container and place in the fridge to cool
7. Once chilled, churn in an ice cream maker for approximately 30 - 35 minutes