The poor man of the house suffered an experimental recipe week, and this one wasn’t great. Only Monday’s Moroccan chicken salad from Barry Vera’s Feast Bazaar made it onto the make again list. Tuesday’s Spanish prawn and lentil recipe was okay but nothing to get excited about, and Gourmet Traveller’s recipe for the Greek dish papoutsakia (made with veal mince and eggplant) on Wednesday turned out the same. I had planned to make linguini with red pepper pesto last night but this filthy weather has been keeping me housebound so I raided the freezer for some beef and red wine pasta sauce instead. At least that made the man happy.

Speaking of the freezer, I’m a big fan of making my own ice-cream. I have several different recipes – Rick Stein’s crème brûlée ice-cream is pretty damn special – but I have to admit most of them are a complete pain in the bum to make. My favourite uses 10 egg yolks. Ten! Which means I end up also making pavlova and macaroons and anything else I can think that uses egg whites so they don’t go to waste. But there’s one ice-cream recipe that’s not wasteful, not a pain and bloody delicious, and you can whip it up in under ten minutes.

Yup, paddle me silly with a soggy baguette, it’s a cheat recipe.

It’s not often I use cheat recipes. You know, the ones that use readymade ingredients like bottled curry sauces or pre-packaged dips. I always think it takes the fun out of cooking, plus I like to know what goes into my food. But a girl’s allowed a touch of laziness now and then, and sometimes a recipe comes along that’s too yumtious to resist. This lemon and mascarpone ice-cream one is one of them.

No photo for this baby. You don’t need it. Just take a look at those ingredients, imagine, drool, then go make.

LEMON AND MASCARPONE ICE-CREAM

600ml thickened cream

2 tablespoons icing sugar, sifted

250g mascarpone

Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated (those Microplane zesters are awesome for this)

Juice of 2 lemons

1 jar of good quality lemon curd (Yackandandah makes a serviceable one, but you could easily whip up your own if you’re feeling excitable, and you could also substitute any other sort of curd, like lime or passionfruit)

Beat cream and sugar in a bowl with electric beaters until soft peaks form. Don’t over beat at this stage or you’ll end up curdling the mix later. Add mascarpone and beat until just combined. Stir in zest, juice and lemon curd. Place in a container and freeze overnight.