Peebles and Ice Cream

Knickerbocker glory

A conversation with Peggy (Peggy Ann’s Post) our visitor from the US about knickerbockers led to me mentioning the ice cream Knickerbocker Glory and I was surprised that Peggy didn’t know what I was talking about although I’m sure they aren’t a particularly Scottish thing. Anyway, the first weekend she was with us we were invited down to Peebles by Evee of Evee’s Blog and when I spotted an ice cream parlour in the town I thought it would be a good chance for Peggy to experience an ice cream indulgence. Jack, Peggy and I had the glories and Evee opted for the Banoffee Split which has a slight nod to healthy eating in that at least you are eating a banana. Mind you the glories contained quite a lot of fruit too.

Banofee Split

After that it was time to take a stroll around the town and work off some of those calories. In truth we had to wait in the shop until the worst of the rain had passed but that gave us an opportunity to watch a large posse of people of all ages riding along the high street on their horses. Peggy said they would have closed the street off for that in the US and she came to the conclusion that in Scotland we are a lot more relaxed about things like that. Sadly I didn’t manage to get a photo of them, or the couple who high stepped it along the road in a horse drawn buggy.

The Cross Kirk was our destination, the sort of place which you would never find if you were a casual visitor to Peebles so we were grateful to have Evee as our guide. The ruin dates back to the late 1100s and it’s in amongst a lot of houses a shortish walk from the high street, but it’s still atmospheric. I especially liked the stone carving of a knight’s head which you can see above the doorway below if you look carefully.

Peebles Cross Kirk

Peebles Cross Kirk

And here we are, what is the collective noun for a group of bloggers? A bevy, bunch, blah or maybe we’re besoms.

K, P, E Peebles Cross Kirk

If you want to see some photos of our visit to Dunfermline Abbey hop over to Jack here.

Magimix Le Glacier Ice Cream Maker

We were lucky enough to be given vouchers for Lakeland Plastics at Christmas. As the weather has been so bad, we haven’t managed to use them until this week.

So we headed north to Perth and had a mooch around the Lakeland shop there. I’ve always fancied being able to make my own ice-cream so that is what we ended up buying and we’ve been trying it out this week-end.

We started off with the vanilla and then branched out to mint with crushed up Aero mint chocolate added to it. They were both really lovely and I’m looking forward to experimenting with lots of different flavours.

You get a basic recipe book with the machine but I think you can be really adventurous and make it up as you go along. There is a great Italian ice cream shop in St Andrews which has dozens and dozens of different flavours, I think my favourite is the Scottish Tablet one and that should be really easy to replicate.

I’ve got Turkish Delight left over from Christmas too and I think I’ll chop it up and add it to the basic vanilla with some rose-water, that should be lovely.

I hate cheap commercially made ice-cream. To me it is just like sweetened margarine and at least if you make it yourself, you know exactly what is in it.

The bowl of the ice-cream maker has to be in your freezer for about 12 hours before you can use it, but after that it only takes about 20 minutes to make the ice-cream.

So the ice-cream maker has been a great success and I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about buying one.