FORGET the brandy butter. A dairy farm has come up with an alternative novel accompaniment to the traditional mince pie this Christmas - Stilton ice cream.

Gillian Kerton and father Michael Davies, of Churchfields Farm in Salwarpe, near Droitwich, came up with the idea as they took their ice-cream to the Great British Cheese Festival in Cheltenham in October.

The dairy farmers decided it would be a good idea to marry the two foods together and when they scoured the internet for ideas, discovered that the strong blue cheese featured prominently.

And Mrs Kerton said they were so delighted with how it had gone down with visitors to the festival that they decided to make it a festive flavour.

Their tasty concoction combines lashing of double cream with an abundance of the blue cheese, which is added after the cream and milk is pasteurised, and less sugar than their staple ice cream.

Mrs Kerton said it was the perfect accompaniment for mince pies - but also suggests using it as a starter, with poached pears or alongside apple pie.

Now they are hoping it will also be snapped up over the festive period - alongside their Christmas pudding ice cream - by people looking for a twist on the traditional festive dinner.

Mrs Kerton said: "We thought it'd be a bit of fun to try it out as Stilton is a festive favourite anyway.

"We were amazed people were buying it by the cone at the festival and they really quite liked it."

Churchfields Farm has been in the Davies' family for about 150 years and they currently milk about 150 holstein fresian cows.

The family got into ice cream making this June as a way of diversifying because of the poor price of milk.

They now produce eight regular flavours - vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, butterscotch, ginger, walnut and maple, mint and rum-and-raisin - alongside seasonal flavours.

Intrigued food-lovers can snap up a 500ml tub of the Stilton flavour for £4.50 from the farm.