With more people choosing a vegan diet, we have developed 5 new flavours of stunning vegan ice cream including vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, Biscoff and Thunder & Lightning. With two years in the making our vegan ice creams are simply the best available on the market.
We would like to share with you exactly how we manage allergens on-site here at English Lakes Ice Cream, by giving you an allergen update.
First things first; we work with six allergens on site: milk (butter, cream and milk), nuts, oats, soya (found in our chocolate sauces), wheat (contained in our Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding crumb and Speculoos) and meringue (egg).
Apart from our sorbets, milk and its derivatives are in all of our products and a full and thorough clean is carried out before we pack our sorbet.
Nuts, oats and meringue are kept in colour coded bins with their own coded scoops and when we use one of these in our ice cream, we try to ensure this is the last product of the day. This way we can have a full clean down afterwards (instead of the rinse through we would do during the course of the day) to minimise the risk of cross contamination.
Unfortunately, we can’t guarantee any cross-contamination however, we do everything we possibly can to minimise any risk!
Inspired by the boozy, fruity richness of the mince pie, this year we have developed our very own festive favourite:
Mince Pie Luxury Ice Cream. So we thought it only fair that we bestow a little festive knowledge!
The History of the Mince Pie
Mince pies evolved from a medieval pastry called “chewette.” which was made with chopped meat or liver, boiled eggs, ginger, dried fruit and other sweet ingredients. It is said that King Henry V was served mince pies as part of his coronation celebrations, which took place in 1413.
When men began returning from the Crusades during the Medieval period, they introduced new fruit, spices and flavours to the British kitchen which quickly made their way into a whole host of savoury recipes. It was also a handy way of making a little meat go a bit further, and disguising the taste of meat that was past it’s best. By the time the Tudors got to the throne mince pies were a well-established treat. Apparently, even Henry VIII like to indulge in (probably one-too-many) mince pies!
It is still unclear how the mince pie became so closely linked with Christmas. Some believe that the three main spices (cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves) are meant to represent the three gifts of the Wise Men, whilst others believe the historically rectangular shape was meant to represent Christ’s cradle. However it came about, during the Puritan era, mince pies were so synonymous with Christmas that Oliver Cromwell’s parliament attempted to ban them (along with Christmas and all the food and festivities that went with it). However, by the 1800s mince pies (and the monarchy!) had been restored to their rightful place and a cook named Richard Briggs detailed a recipe which is remarkably similar to those we still eat today, although savoury recipes containing meat were still common right up to the Victorian era.
Don’t panic… our version is strictly sweet!
This spring we have developed a fantastic recipe for a sorbet that really stands out from the crowd by joining forces with one of Britain’s unsung heroes: the gooseberry!
Far from being the unwelcome friend crashing your date, gooseberries were an extremely popular fruit for sauces and wines back in Elizabethan England and, after century or so out in the cold, we are bringing gooseberries back with a bang!
This new creation combines our super sorbet recipe with a tangy and sweet gooseberry fruit, creating a perfect balance of refreshingly sweet and deliciously tart.
Fruity and floral, this quintessentially British summertime super-star went down a treat at our recent exhibitions across the North Lakes, winning the favour of scoopers, retailers and chefs alike.
Our Gooseberry Sorbet will be available in one litre and two-litre sizes from April 2015. An irresistibly refreshing addition to your sunny British summertime! Visit our products page to find out more!
New Allergen Information, courtesy of the European Union!
From December 14th 2014, the way that allergens are displayed on packaging will be changing. Instead of the general allergen declaration that you would find currently, you will now need to search through ingredients to find the allergens, which will be displayed in bold type (probably!).
In theory, if you’re in a restaurant then allergens should be displayed on the menu. However, there is a card you can download here which the chef is supposed to fill in for you, upon request, with potential allergens for the meal you’ve just ordered (because they have so much spare time!).
On longer life products such as tinned and frozen foods, it may take up to 12 months before you see a change in the packaging because of the products already in circulation, but by December 2016 all food products will be required to have this nutritional information clearly displayed.
In our opinion, the original legislation was perfectly adequate as you simply looked for the allergen section on product packaging.
If you would like specific allergen advice on our products, this information is available beneath each flavour on our products page.
If you’d like to find out more about the new allergens legislation, please click here.
