Recently my husband has been on a Lambic beer kick. He’s tried them all (pêche, pommes, kriek and cassis) and the Lindemans’ Framboise (raspberry) is the hands down favorite. I’m not a beer drinker, unless I’m sitting on a tropical beach with the sun beating down on me and eating something spicy; at which point a beer satisfies my needs. But this beer is different. It is the dessert of beers. Lindemans’ Framboise is made in Belgium from barley, wheat and wild yeast. After it spontaneously ferments (this is sounding a lot like the start of a levain bread dough) the raspberries are added and you have a complex flavor of juice and the bitter slightly sour taste of the beer. I can even drink this without a beach!
My sons requested root beer floats after our long, hot car ride back from the cabin. As I was scooping the ice cream into the glass and the foam came up over the glass I had a vision of an adult version of this classic kids treat. I grabbed my husbands glass of beer and threw in a scoop of vanilla ice cream. But vanilla ice cream? It needed something more, something fresh and fruity to bring out the character of the beer. I had just made a blueberry-ginger sauce that would fit the bill perfectly. All I did was pour some of the sauce over the ice cream in a dish, refroze it for about 20 minutes and then scooped out the blueberry swirl ice cream into the beer. Now we have something to talk about, and it’s Framboise Lambic with blueberry ice cream.
The Blueberry Sauce (which I also used to make a trifle and as a sauce for the strawberry dacquoise torte):
4 cups fresh blueberries
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons finely diced candied ginger (or 1 tablespoon fresh)
1/2 vanilla bean
Put all the ingredients in a sauce pot and allow to gently simmer until the fruit breaks down and the juices thicken, about 20-30 minutes.
If you want a chunky sauce then leave it as it is or you can use an Immersion Blender to make it smooth.
Pour the sauce over a dish of ice cream, allow it to refreeze for about 20 minutes. This can be done the day before. Scoop and you will have blueberry swirl ice cream.
Here is a treat for the kids, so they don’t feel left out while you are slurping down your “R” rated float. Make them a blueberry ice cream sundae, just add whipped cream!
Ingredients
- 1 bottle Lindemans Framboise Lambic This beer
- 1 scoop vanilla ice cream
- 4 cups blueberries fresh, if possible
- ⅓ cup sugar
- ½ vanilla bean
Instructions
Blueberry Sauce
- Put all the ingredients in a sauce pot and allow to gently simmer until the fruit breaks down and the juices thicken, about 20-30 minutes.
- If you want a chunky sauce then leave it as it is or you can use an Immersion Blender to make it smooth.
- Pour the sauce over a dish of ice cream, allow it to refreeze for about 20 minutes. This can be done the day before. Scoop and you will have blueberry swirl ice cream.
- Add a scoop to the beer.
This looks so delicious Zoe!
That float looks really good! Nice and cool and refreshing.
that’s the best-looking float my two eyes have ever seen. i’m suddenly very glad to have buckets of blueberries in my fridge. 🙂
Yum! I love floats. I love Guiness floats as well.
The ice cream looks delicious.
I recently used your peach-raspberry pie as inspiration for a pie that I made. I’ll post in the next week or so. Thanks!
Hi everyone,
So glad you enjoyed the float, it is my new favorite summer treat. This week at least! 😉
Zoë
Floats are perfect for summer! This one looks like a winner!
um, can i come over and you can make me one of those? That would be nice.
My youngest had requested blue berry ice cream for his birthday….I remembered seeing this recipe…YUM! (I can’t wait till next weekend when we head to New Glarus for our anniversary..I’m picking up some raspberry tart beer to make myself a float!!!). By the way, you are now 2 for 3 on my sons’ birthdays…next one is in December…can’t wait to make another of your recipes!