The Grown-Up Float – Framboise Lambic with Blueberry Ice Cream (and something for the kids!)

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.

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!