My variation – home-made …

… sauces

As I've said the fast option is to use a jar of salted caramel sauce (260g) – easily available at most large supermarkets – fold into the mixture to give a marbled effect.

However if you'd like to make your own salted caramel sauce here's my recipe :

Salted Caramel Sauce

110g/4oz unsalted butter

225g/8oz soft dark brown sugar

275ml/10 fl oz double cream (or whipping cream)

1½ tsp salt

Heat together the butter and sugar. When dissolved add the salt and whisk in the cream.

Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring.

One batch of the recipe produces approximately 539g of the sauce and you can portion and freeze for convenience. Yippee – more for another time!

Alternatively if you don't like salt in your caramel sauce, then here's the alternative :

Sticky Toffee Sauce

4oz unsalted butter

8oz soft brown sugar

2oz chopped stem ginger (optional)

10 fl oz double cream (or whipping cream)

Heat together the butter, sugar and ginger. When dissolved add the cream.

Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring.

The stem ginger in this recipe is optional but it makes a good addition when serving the sauce as an accompaniment to nursery puddings and ice cream.

One batch of either recipe produces approximately 539g of the sauce, or, over two portions to fold through ice cream. It can be frozen for convenience. A shop bought sauce is usually 260g per jar. I think you'll find that making your own sauce it is less sweet and really enhances the flavour of the vanilla ice cream.

Double yum!

Now for some festive savoury stuff ...