Strawberry Ice cream

As a child it always fascinated me that some people on this earth could make ice cream at home – the kind that you get at stores! It was like a dream come true! That fascination wore off a little when I came to US and I saw that you could buy ice cream in “tubs” and they were so economical!! However when I started looking at the list of ingredients I put an ice cream maker on my wish list so that I could make pure and natural ice cream! My initial thought was to purchase a used one as I wasn’t sure how long my fad is going to last. However that wasn’t God’s intention. He intervened in the form of a costco coupon which made a brand new IC maker cheaper than a used one. So my “dream” came true and we brought home a glossy red Cuisinart ice cream maker! Enough with the stories let me get down to what I did with this beauty!

My first attempt was a peach frozen yogurt – though tasty it was a little icy for a frozen yogurt. Second was a mango tango sorbet – I simply churned some Naked mango smoothie. It was quite tasty considering how healthy it was; but I wasn’t there yet. I wanted to make some “real” ice cream. So I hunted and found this Eggless strawberry ice cream recipe. The ice cream was AWESOME! It brought back childhood memories. It was just like the Amul ice cream we used to have in India (except mine had real fruits )! That was the first time I realized the difference between the ice cream in US and India. In my research for an ice cream recipe I’d found that ice creams here were more custard-like and in most cases had egg; they were dense. Indian ice cream is more creamy and light (I don’t think there’s anything good or bad with either – just that they’re different). That’s exactly what my home-made ice cream tasted like – creamy and fluffy! Eureka!

I halved the recipe to fit in my ice cream maker. Since I didn’t have whole milk as well as coloring and I forgot to put salt, these are the ingredients from the recipe that I ended up using:

• 1/2 cup low fat milk
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cups mashed pureed fresh strawberries – I pureed the strawberries because I didn’t want big chunks. I left some tiny little chunks while pureeing.
• 1-2 tsp honey – I’d read that honey prevents crystallization. Did it really? I don’t know but since my ice cream turned out perfect I’m not making it without honey!

To make ice cream:

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients. Prepare the ice cream in your machine per manufacturer’s direction. In my machine, I’d to switch on the machine and pour the mixture through the opening. I believe in churning a little more so I timed it for 30 minutes; and off I went to do my chores. When I came back, the machine was almost overflowing. Thankfully the batter was all frozen otherwise I would’ve had a mess.

Do you see the rose pink color of the ice cream? Pureeing the strawberries gave that. I didn’t use any coloring!

I think this is a great basic recipe and I’m going to try it out with different fruits.