Pumpkin seed oil – the sweet

Pumpkin seed brittle ice cream that serves 4 people in an hour or so (this includes cooling time for the brittle)

I’m just going to put it out there right up front, so we can get it all over with. This recipe involves pouring oil over ice cream – yes, oil over ice cream. Please don’t be turned off, read on. It’s delicious and worth it!

One of the things I love most about pumpkin seed oil is its colour – a rich orange-brown that almost looks green by the edges. As a result it is a beautiful thing to use to finish a dish, drizzling it on a butternut squash soup, risotto or, in this instance, ice cream.

I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I wanted to do a sweet with this oil due to its awesome drizzability. Having seen olive oil on ice-cream in Italian restaurants, I decided this was the approach I would take and made a pumpkin seed brittle to go with it. Pumpkin and caramel are a lovely flavour combination after all (just ask an American).

Ingredients:

• 50g pumpkin seeds
• 50g sugar
• 25g butter
• 1/2 tsp sea salt flakes
• 2 tbsp water
• 4tsp pumpkin seed oil
• 8 scoops of vanilla ice cream

Put a large flat frying pan on a medium heat and toast the pumpkin seeds until they are very slightly brown – just a slight shade darker than they are regularly. Then shake onto a big piece of wax paper.

Turn the pan down to a medium-low heat and add the sugar, water and salt. Once the sugar has melted, bring it to a boil, until it is bubbling.

Stir it and let the sugar brown to a caramel colour. Then add the butter.

Pour the caramel all over the pumpkin seeds and let cool.

Once cooled, break it into chunky pieces.

Scoop two scoops of vanilla ice cream into 4 bowls. Drizzle each with 1-1.5 tablespoons of pumpkin seed oil and divide the brittle between the bowls. Mmmm …