Make mine a basil sorbet: Fresh herbs can add subtle and delicious flavour to desserts

People can be very particular about desserts. For most, it's not every day that they indulge in a syrupy sponge or a creamy mousse. It is a treat, a one-off. And while diners tend to be willing to experiment with their starters and mains, open to trying new spices, sauces and meats, they tend to go back to what they know for their sweet.

After all, if dessert is something of a special occasion (as well as adding a hefty load of calories to your meal), then you want a tried and tested one, a pudding you know for sure will hit the spot. All of this goes some way to explaining why the same flavours pop up on dessert menus, regardless of the season. Sure, a winter crumble might be swapped for crème brûlée in summer but the flavours never stray too far from the norm: chocolate, vanilla, caramel, lemon, berries and so on.

But chefs are known for wanting to push culinary boundaries and challenge the public's palette, so you might not be too surprised to hear that a number of top restaurants are currently offering desserts with a rather curious ingredient: herbs. Take a closer look at menus and you might see them. They're currently everywhere: in ice creams, panna cottas, apple tarts. And we're not just talking mint and lavender, two herbs that have come to be accepted in dessert dishes, but rather herbs that you associate firmly with the first two courses of a meal. Herbs such as thyme, rosemary, basil and tarragon – ones you tend to find jazzing up a meat dish or a salad rather than a Victoria sponge.

Pollen Street Social, Jason Atherton's acclaimed London restaurant, which opened to much fanfare in April, currently has four desserts on the menu that feature herbs in a starring role. Much was made of the fact that a dessert bar took pride of place in the restaurant and he's not going to waste such a unique feature by serving up the same old tired puds.

"I've always worked with herbs and vegetables in desserts purely because, in this country, while we are blessed with great fruits, they're not all that interesting," Atherton says. "It's not like when you go to Asia and the fruit is so unique, it's so exotic, and there are so many things to do with it. If you want to use those fruits here you have to import them in. So I try and use as many natural products from this country as possible; that's very important to me."

At the dessert bar, Atherton takes me through the four desserts that feature the green stuff: basil sorbet with stewed strawberries and meringue; candied beetroot, macerated yellow peaches, sweet carrot granita and tarragon ice cream; thyme and vanilla panna cotta with raspberries; and caramel apple puffs with vanilla and smoked rosemary ice cream. They certainly look very pretty but I'm sceptical. Tarragon ice cream? Surely I can't be the first person to come into the restaurant and pull a face?

"You're always going to get people who think it's wrong because their brains don't really get past things like vanilla or chocolate for dessert," Atherton says.

"But people with open minds love it. We do have the odd person who goes, 'Oh no, it doesn't work for me'. But most people who try it are really taken with it. I'd sooner my food challenged people than just be the norm."

First up to try is the tarragon ice cream dish, which comes with beetroot, peaches and carrot. The idea behind the dessert is that it is "based on what you would pull out of an English garden at this time of year". While many people wouldn't dream of ordering such a dish for dessert, I can't recommend it enough. It is refreshing, sweet and totally unique. After winning me over with the tarragon ice cream, I'm keen to try the others, all of which I can't fault. I'm converted.

Atherton is far from the only chef around adding herbs to desserts, though. Tristan Welch, of Launceston Place, is another fan. "For me, personally, I like the earthiness it gives the dishes, I think they're quite a versatile thing," he says. "We're currently doing a lemon posset with wild marjoram – lemon's quite tart and posset is traditionally quite sweet so the earthiness of the marjoram brings it back down to earth and levels it all out into a slightly more savoury flavour.

"Herbs are very much present in all my food, actually, so it kind of makes sense to experiment and try them out. I suppose it's an extension on from infusing spices into your ice creams and other desserts, things like nutmeg; it's a natural progression."

Mickael Weiss, at Coq D'Argent, has also been busy playing around with herbs in his desserts. "We have incorporated them for a very long time and the list of herbs you can use is quite long and what you can do with them is endless," Weiss says. "Whatever goes together, goes together. In 1995, when I was 15, doing my apprenticeship in France, I used to use tarragon with strawberries because it's one of the great flavours of the south of France. Tarragon is aniseed in flavour and so we sometimes do ice cream with tarragon in it because it gives it that slight aniseed taste. We also use thyme in things like tarte tatin, for example, which gives a little extra flavour to it, but it must be in a fresh state rather than dry."

Ah yes. If you want to try this at home there are a few simple rules that you should adhere to. Most importantly, you should always use fresh herbs. Dried versions often have a bitter edge and using fresh ones will lend a much brighter flavour to desserts.

Also, be careful about how many herbs you are adding to your dish, as they often work best in small quantities. Most herbs have an intense flavour that can overpower dishes if too much is used and turn something sweet into something savoury. Welch recalls experimenting in the kitchen when he was younger. "The first time I ever mucked around with herbs and dessert was when I was about 15 or 16 and I made a pennyroyal cake. Pennyroyal has a minty flavour but even stronger, almost like a Murray Mint. I blended it up in a sort of Victoria sponge mix and I put way too much in and it completely blew my head off. It didn't deter me, though."

Finally, don't forget to properly mince the herbs and dissipate them in your dish; you don't want someone to get a huge chunk of the herb in one bite. If you're worried this might happen, you can always infuse your chosen herb in water or milk (just add the herb to the liquid over a stove, simmer and strain) and add the resulting liquid into the mix.

Such is the power of herbs that the smell of certain ones can be quite nostalgic and choosing the right herb can take you back to past times. "My parents had the most beautiful herb garden and I used to get dragged round the garden centres with my mum," Welch recalls. "We'd choose all these incredible herbs; I can still smell the sweetness of all those flavours."

So if you're looking to jazz up some dessert dishes and impress guests with intriguing new flavours, why not look to basil, tarragon, rosemary, sage, fennel or thyme? Don't be afraid; a whole new host of flavours await you.

Vanilla and rosemary ice cream

500g double cream
500g whole milk
10 egg yolks
225g caster sugar
2 vanilla pods, split and scraped
1 tablespoon bashed and chopped rosemary

Method

Boil the milk and cream with the vanilla pods and rosemary.

Whisk the yolks together with the caster sugar.

Pour half of the liquid onto the yolks and whisk together. Re-boil the remaining half in the pan

Add the yolk mix into the pan, reduce the heat and cook to 86C. Check the consistency and strain through a fine sieve.

Chill on ice, whisking for 2-3 minutes to release the steam.

When cool, churn in an ice-cream maker and then freeze.

Basil sorbet, stewed strawberries and meringue

For the meringue:

100g egg whites
200g caster sugar

For the strawberries:

250g red wine
250g sugar
250g water
500g strawberries, halved

For the basil sorbet:

200ml water
100g glucose
100ml stock syrup
Juice of 1 lemon
45g basil

Method

To make the meringue, whip the ingredients together until it creates stiff peaks. Spread thinly onto a tray lined with baking parchment. Bake in the oven at 85C until crisp. For the strawberries, gently bring the liquids and sugar to the boil together in a pan to create a syrup. Pour the syrup over the strawberries and cover with cling film until macerated.

For the basil sorbet, melt the glucose into the water by warming gently, then add the stock syrup. Squeeze in the lemon juice. Add the basil when cool, then freeze until solid. Churn the sorbet until smooth. Makes 10-15 servings.

Thyme and vanilla panna cotta

600g buttermilk
200g semi-whipped cream
200g double cream
250g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod (seeds only)
16g crushed thyme
Juice and zest of lemon
3 leaves of gelatine
Fresh whole raspberries

Heat the double cream and the sugar to dissolve the sugar with the lemon juice, zest, vanilla, and thyme. Melt in the soaked gelatine and pass through a muslin cloth or fine sieve. When cool, add the buttermilk and then fold in the semi-whipped cream. Fill your moulds (we use cocktail glasses) and refrigerate to set. Finish with some fresh raspberries on top of the panna cotta to serve once set. Serves 8-10.