Sesame Salted Caramel Magnum Ego's

I just came back not long ago while shooting my TV show 'Behind The Sash' (starts airing Channel 10 on 26th Oct) from the beautiful Phillipines. On my journey while visiting many experiencing poverty, I came across this amazingly versatile cooking ingredient... pandan. Its cheap, fragrant and readily available, that also adds gorgeous colour to your cooking.

Pandan (vanilla grass in English), is an essential ingredient in Asian cooking. With its sweet, fragrant, grassy aroma, it is widely used in both savoury and sweet dishes. Essentially, you chop up some pandan leaves, lighten with water, then squeeze the juice out by pounding the leaves with a pestle and mortar. The funny thing about the pandan leaf is that you have to heat it to extract its flavour and aroma. When fresh, you can hardly discern any fragrance, but once heated, aroma molecules seem to burst out of nowhere.

The possibilities are endless, from using it whole to wrap food to bake, to adding the juice (using coconut milk or water) flavour cocktails, curries, rice, desserts, smoothies... even vegan chocolate! Available at any Asian grocery, its not hard to find and I couldn't wait to give it a try (I'm sure you'll see many recipes with it to follow) I thought id start with one of my favourite vegan treats. The magnum ego!

Ingredients

makes 6 ice-creams

½ cup cashews (soaked min of 2hrs)

½ cup coconut cream

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

¼ cup maple syrup

Sesame salted caramel sauce:

10 pitted Medjool dates

⅓ cup coconut cream

pinch of Himalayan salt

½ tsp vanilla bean paste

1 tsp mesquite powder

¼ cup sesame seeds

1 tbp molasses

10g pandan leaves

Dark Chocolate shell*

¼ cup melted coconut oil

⅓ cup raw cacao powder

⅛ maple syrup

(you can substitute the Dark chocolate with @loving_earth or other vegan chocolate brand a just melt over low heat above pot if simmering water. The shortening in white chocolate can be substituted with extra cacao butter but will be a bit richer) Top with caramel vegan chocolate as I did or sesame seeds.

Method

*If you would like a richer pandan flavour you can flavour all of the coconut cream with it and then divide the cream for the sauce and the ice-cream base after. Otherwise start with the sauce by cutting the pandan leaves into 5cm pieces, Blend the leaves together with the coconut milk.
Strain the leaves and milk liquid through a strainer to remove the leaves, I press the leaves with a spoon to get all the flavour to remove the leaves to make sure it is creamy.
Let it cool down to about room temperature.
Place all the ice cream ingredients into a blender and mix until you have a smooth mixture. * if flavouring the ice-cream with pandan also be sure to keep some aside for the sauce.
Pour the ice cream mixture into the moulds until they are ¾ full (make sure not to fill them up completely so you have some space left for the sauce).
Add the wooden sticks and place the filled moulds into the freezer for about 1 hour (the ice cream should be almost set).
While waiting, prepare the sesame, salted caramel filling by placing all ingredients into the blender (including pandan coconut cream) and mixing them until you get a creamy thick sauce. I place mine over low heat which I find works best to help smooth.
Once you got the desired texture spread the sauce evenly into the remaining ¼ of the moulds.
Place the moulds back into the freezer for until the sauce has hardened.
Combine all the raw chocolate ingredients in a bowl and mix until you get a smooth chocolate mixture in bowl over a pot of simmering water, being sure not to let the bottom hit the water.
Dip each popsicle into the different melted chocolate (I pour into a deep cup), then top with vegan caramel sauce such as @loving_earth or sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Make sure to let them defrost for a couple of minutes at room temperature before eating. Enjoy!