For as much as I love strawberry ice cream (and strawberry milkshakes even more!), this is the first time that I’ve ever made it on my own. Because, really, who could pass up these gorgeous strawberries:

So, I decided now was the time to have a go at strawberry. When I’m making a new flavor, unless I’m following an exact recipe from a book, the first thing I do is a little bit of research. I’ve slowly been amassing a collection of ice cream cookbooks, so that’s where I start. My go-tos are The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz, The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato and Sorbetto, and the recently released Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer.

I considered making roasted strawberry ice cream, like Jeni does in her book, but given the fact that it was 88 degrees outside, and my kitchen lacks air conditioning I decided to skip firing up the oven. Instead I concocted a simple strawberry ice cream using the vanilla ice cream recipe I shared last week as the base.

Here’s the recipe:

Simple Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
2/3 cups sugar
1 1-lb box strawberries

Directions:

- Wash and trim the caps off the strawberries. Then cut berries into slices that are approximately 1/4-inch thick. (Or just use and egg slicer.)
- Puree 1/2 of the sliced strawberries in a food processor or blender, and set aside.
- Combine cream, milk, and sugar in a saucepan and heat until the sugar is completely dissolved.
- Remove from heat and pour into a large bowl. Add in the strawberry puree and mix well.
- Cover with plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator until completely cool to the touch.
- While the custard is chilling, dice the remaining sliced strawberries into smaller pieces to mix in the ice cream.
- Freeze the custard in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
- Once the ice cream is done freezing mix in the diced strawberries, and pour into an air-tight container.
- Freeze for an additional 2 hours.

And here are the photos of how mine turned out:

Strawberries are all sliced. Ready to puree half of them, and set the other half aside to be mixed in later.

Into the food processor they go! I Have a mini-chop, and I was pleasantly surprised to be able to puree it all in one batch.

The color of this puree is so bright. You could add a bit of lemon juice to this if you wanted too, but I don’t think it needs it.

See photos of how to make the custard here.

Now it’s all mixed together and ready to chill for several hours. Break time!

I use the Cuisinart Supreme Commercial Quality Ice Cream Maker so I can freeze multiple batches in a row. It also has a removable bucket that makes pouring the custard in much easier.

Time to start churning!

After approximately 40 minutes in my machine, the ice cream is done freezing.

Time to mix in the other 1/2 of the strawberries. I love having fruit mixed into my ice cream.

And here it is, the final product!