New Zealander Dessert
HOKEY POKEY ICE CREAM
INGREDIENTS – HOKEY POKEY
2 tablespoons golden syrup
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
INGREDIENTS – ICE CREAM
1½ cups heavy whipping cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
4 egg yolks
SPECIAL UTENSILS
Waxed parchment paper or cookie sheet
No-stick spray
electric beater
1 gallon plastic container with tight lid
Makes 3 quarts. Takes 45 minutes plus about 6 hours in freezer.
PREPARATION – HOKEY POKEY
Put waxed parchment paper on cookie sheet. Spray waxed parchment paper with no-stick spray. Add golden syrup and sugar to pan. Cook at low-medium heat until mixture melts and then boils. Stir constantly. Reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes. Stir constantly to avoid burning the sugar. Remove from heat. Add baking soda. Stir with fork until mixture becomes pale and frothy. Pour mixture onto waxed parchment paper. Let sit for 30 minutes or until mixture solidifies into hokey pokey. Break hokey pokey with hands, bash with kitchen mallet, or cut with kitchen scissors until you have chunks no longer than ½” long.
PREPARATION – ICE CREAM
While hokey pokey sets, add cream to large mixing bowl. Whip with electric beater set on cream, or high, until cream becomes thickens and soft peaks form. Add vanilla extract, confectioner’s sugar, and egg yolks to second mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on cream, or high, until creamy. Fold confectioner’s sugar/egg mixture from second mixing bowl into first mixing bowl with cream.
PREPARATION – FINAL
Add hokey pokey chunks and ice cream to plastic container. Stir gently with spoon until hokey pokey is evenly distributed. Cover and put in refrigerator for 6 hours or ice cream is firm.
TIDBITS
1) The hokey pokey is a dance where a leader names a part of the body. The participants then put that part in, take part out, put that part in, shake it all about, turn themselves around. That’s what it’s all about.
2) The hokey pokey was used to devastating effect by English forces in the battle of Waterloo in 1815. In a desperate gamble, the French Emperor Napoleon hurled his vaunted Old Guard at the center of the English infantry line. Onward, ever onward they marched, their jaws clenched tightly together by glue-like oatmeal. The English line buckled. One more push and the French would triumph. Napoleon would remain emperor. He would continue to march his armies all over Europe. Europe would continue to be drenched in blood as Napoleon engaged in ceaseless conquest and pursuit of La Gloire.
3) Private Henry Tavert of the English tenor-infantry brigade began to shake in terror. His sergeant growled. “Pull yourself together, man.”
4) “I can’t.” said Henry. “You must,” said the sergeant. “For God, king, and country.”
5) “I still can’t.” The sergeant rolled his eyes. “All right then, do it for your mum.”
6) Henry managed a weak smile. “I can do that. Me mum used to sing the hokey pokey to me whenever I got afraid. It gave me courage, it did.”
7) “Then private, sing the hokey pokey.”
8) And so Henry did, weakly at first, but with increasing conviction and volume with each successive word. The rest of the tenor brigade joined in. When they all got to the part about turning “yourself about,” the song could be heard by the bilingual sergeants of France’s Old Guard.
9) These bilingual sergeants upon hearing the words “turn yourself about,” turned themselves about. The privates taking their cue from their sergeants turned themselves about as well.
10) “D___ me,” shouted the sergeant, “The Frenchies are fleeing. Fix bayonets!” He pointed to the retreating French. “England, put your whole selves out.”
11) The tenor brigade charged. Brigades to their left and right advanced as well. Pretty soon, the entire English army rushed the French. The French retreat became a rout. Napoleon’s once mighty Grande Armée disintegrated never to reform. Europe was finally at peace.
12) Europe stayed at peace for another 99 years. Whenever a country poured it armies across its neighbor’s borders, the defenders would sing the hokey pokey and make the attackers turn themselves about. War became pointless and boring.
13) Until 1913, when countries issued ear plugs to their armies. Soldiers couldn’t hear the hokey pokey and so would no longer turn themselves about. World War I, a horrific bloodbath, commenced only one year later. We need to come up with a countermeasure to ear plugs.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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