Saturday, August 04, 2007

Five Star Strawberry Ice Cream

This must be my favourite ice cream. The primary qualification for that title is that we just finished it, and I’m thinking about it a lot. It was soooo good. And now the strawberry season is already passed again, and I’ll be thinking of it for another 11 months.

I should pull myself together and heartily eat local raspberries and blueberries. I’m planning some raspberry picking this weekend. And I noticed the local high bush blueberries used as landscaping on campus are ripe and tasty. I’ve been snacking as I wander around between buildings.

This recipe is from Cooking.com and is the primary reason I still tarry through their website on occasion. When I first received my Cuisinart ice cream maker (a gift from my wonderful sibs), I had only the instruction manual’s recipes. Which turned out to be not so helpful, for me at least. My first ice cream success was a Company’s Coming recipe which used processed pudding mix powder. For a long time, that was the only one I made. This strawberry ice cream recipe was my first ‘from scratch’ ice cream success which may inspire extra loyalty in my heart, but I honestly believe it deserves all accolades anyway. I suppose the berries themselves deserve some of the credit too.

Strawberry Ice Cream
1 C whipping cream
½ C half and half
2/3 C sugar
5 large egg yolks
½ C corn syrup
3 C fresh strawberries, hulled

1. Combine cream and half and half in a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer.
2. Whisk yolks, sugar, and corn syrup in a medium bowl.
3. Gradually stir warm cream mixture into the yolk mixture, whisking all the time.
4. Return mixture to the saucepan.
5. Stir over medium low heat until the custard thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon, about 10 minutes.
6. Transfer custard to a bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight or until chilled.
7. Puree strawberries. Gradually blend into the custard.
8. Strain the custard through a fine meshed sieve.
9. Process in an ice cream maker according to your models’instructions.

5 comments:

Zeb said...

are there no strawberry chunks in your icecream then?

ive read that you can macerate high moisture fruit to avoid their full crystallization; you would do this in sugar/invert and/or liqueur

Zeb said...

it looks really strawberrie-y

Nerine said...

In this one, I added back some of the pulp wich included strawberry bits and seeds. I like that part in my ice cream. At other times, I've added more (even all of the pulp) so that you could see it mixed throughout. I prefer it that way aesthetically, but you'll have the strawberry flavour either way.

Nora B. said...

Looks and sounds devine, Nerine. My mum or partner usually makes the ice-cream but I feel tempted to make my own and will have to bookmark this recipe for summer. Right now, all I can think about is hot choc! ;-)

Nerine said...

Hahah. I have been considering making hot chocolate this past week too! Once the fog rolls in... I just need a little extra.