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We all scream for ice cream

You can tell The Icecreamists by Matt O’Connor, is not quite like any ordinary ice cream recipe book you may have picked up before, just by looking at the cover. In place of the usual soft, pale, subtle ice cream colours you would normally expect to see, there is a black and bright pink cover with a silver skull and cross bones to match the silver writing.

Matt begins the book by explaining his passion for ice cream, a story that involves him as small boy dropping a large ice cream on a sandy beach. Now, we’ve all been there, but for most of us after we’ve had a good cry, a clean t-shirt and a new ice cream we move on, but not for Matt. This childhood incident sparked his enthusiastic life-long fascination for ice cream.

The Icecreamists begins with historical ice cream facts, followed by the Ten Commandments of Cool (ice cream making do’s and don’ts to you and I), before getting on to the recipes. Five chapters follow, starting with ice cream and with titles such as The Chockwork Orange, and Gingiana Jones. A sorbet chapter, some of which are laced with alcohol, a gin and tonic sorbet is called Lenin and Lime; and finally ice cream cocktails, milk shakes, sundaes, and desserts.

Photography for the book is as fascinating as the recipe names. Anders Schonnemann has captured to perfection, the decadent feel of the book, with page after page of gorgeous photographs. Although shot with a distinctive dark feel, they draw you in making you feel you could easily whip up the Caked Crusader (Jamaican ginger cake ice cream) or a Natural Born Chiller (Muscat sorbetto) with the greatest of ease.

The Icecreamists is published by Mitchell Beazley and is out now.

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