Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

  

What do you do when you have a flat of beautiful ripe strawberries?  First you eat a bunch, and take pictures of your children with strawberry juice running down their chins.  You freeze some and then you make ice cream, of course.  If you’ve never made homemade ice cream, it’s worth a try.  It’s not difficult to make and you will feel so accomplished and satisfied with yourself.  This recipe is adapted from epicurious.com.

• 1 3/4 cups heavy cream or whipping cream
• 1/2 t. almond extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 lb strawberries (3 cups), trimmed and quartered

Combine cream, almond extract, and salt in a heavy saucepan and bring just to a boil. Remove from heat.  Whisk the eggs with 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl, then temper them by adding the hot cream in a slow stream, 1/2 C. at a time, whisking constantly. This warms the eggs gradually without scrambling them.  Pour back into saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened and an instant-read thermometer registers 170°F (do not let boil).  Now you have a custard base that you can add flavoring to.  Pour the hot custard through a fine sieve into a metal bowl, then cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Chill in the fridge until the mixture is cold.  While the custard is chilling, purée the strawberries with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a food processor until smooth. Force through fine sieve (to remove seeds) into the chilled custard. Stir the purée into custard.  Pour into an ice-cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturers directions. Once the ice cream has been churned it needs an hour or so in the freezer to harden.  I enjoy homemade ice cream the same day it was made.  I find that it usually takes on an icy texture the longer it sits in the freezer.  Store bought ice cream must have some kind of stabilizers that prevent this.  This will make about three cups of ice cream, so you will probably not have much left over.

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