How to Make Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream at Home

By J C Willis

When it comes to certain foods, traditional flavors reign supreme. No matter how many flavors Ben and Jerry come up with, you can't beat good old-fashioned strawberry ice cream. It's a flavor synonymous with summer and loaded with natural goodness. It might not be as complex as Rocky Road or as exotic as Green Tea, but it brings a special level of wholesomeness all its own. Best of all, this is one of the easiest ice cream flavors to prepare at home. You don't need much prior experience - all it takes is great ingredients, a good ice cream maker, and a bit of time to put it all together.

The first step to preparing strawberry ice cream is half the fun. It's your mission to find the sweetest, ripest strawberries available. If it happens to be summertime then you're in luck. This is when strawberries are in season, and you should be able to get great deals at your local market. If you can get them at a farmer's market or directly from the source, even better. And remember, you don't need those perfect strawberries that are firm and look beautiful. In this case, this super-ripe strawberries that are slightly tender will do just fine. You'll be blending them into a puree anyways, so it doesn't really matter what they look like.

After you have your batch of strawberries, it's time to make your puree. In general, about 3 cups of strawberries will do nicely. Put them in your blender and give them a few blasts to make your puree. At this stage, you can choose to add extras like lemon juice or vanilla extract. You can even add a bit of extra sugar if you like. Just remember that your strawberry should be the main star of the recipe, and it doesn't require much extra at all.

Now it's time to put together your custard, and this will require four basic ingredients:

1 1/3 cups of heavy cream

1/3 cup of milk

3/4 cups white sugar

3 eggs

Heat your cream over medium heat until the sides slightly bubble. Take care not to let it get to a full boil however. In a separate bowl, add your eggs, sugar, and milk. Whisk these ingredients until everything is evenly blended. Now gently pour in your hot cream while whisking to blend evenly. Once everything is put together, return all of the contents into your sauce pan and heat over medium. You'll see that the custard eventually thickens to the point where it will coat the back of a metal spoon. This generally takes about 5 minutes. Remember to take care throughout the process, making sure never to boil the custard and always blending everything as evenly as possible. Now it's time to add your strawberry puree. You can use as sieve if you like, or just mix everything if you want a slightly chunky result. Refrigerate everything until it's chilled thoroughly.

The final step involves putting the custard into your ice cream maker. If you would like larger chunks of strawberry, this is the point where you can include bigger pieces that you've diced up. Manufacturers recommendations will vary depending on the model, but in general it will take around 20-25 minutes. If you're using a fully automated maker like a Cuisinart model, all you have to do is add your custard and turn on the power. Old-fashioned handcrank models will obviously require you to churn the handle yourself. When the process is done, you'll have a soft serve version of strawberry ice cream loaded with natural goodness. If you want harder final results, simply put it in your freezer for a couple of hours.

All it takes is one try to see how easy this recipe is to prepare. There's lots of room for changes to make it fancier, but it also works wonderfully on its own. This is the perfect trait to prepare on a hot summer day you want a great dessert after dinner.

Making homemade ice cream used to be a chore, but now it's as easy as 1-2-3. It starts with the machine you choose, and you can find a good one if you visit http://icecreamakers.com/. You'll see that a good machine doesn't have to cost a lot of money, and even the most basic one will give you everything you need for fresh and delicious ice cream every time.

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