Strawberries and Cream

Posted on March 14, 2016

It’s curious, every time I sit down to write out a recipe, I spend a little time thinking about what grams would say. What memories would she remember about these recipes that I don’t? How did she create or find a recipe? I would say a good half of all the recipes in gram’s books are from friends, relatives, or other cookbooks and this one is no different. It’s on an old piece of type paper from 1978 from her friend Shirley MacKay. Gram’s binders are filled with torn out pages from magazines, recipe cards ‘from the kitchen of’ various friends, or jotted down notes from a restaurant she’d visited where she convinced a chef to share the recipe with her. Grams was funny like that. She could pretty much talk anyone into giving her a good recipe.

Today, with the dreary rain and all around blah mood, I couldn’t ask for a better day to make ice cream, right? Perfect comfort food (other than pizza of course). Now two things. One, this ice cream recipe is actually a ‘vanilla base.’I chose to make strawberry ice cream, as it’s one of my favorites and the berries at the store looked great. I can’t wait until summer when I can mix and match all sorts of fresh fruit. You could hypothetically add just about anything to this recipe though. For example:

Crushed up cookies = Cookies and cream
Almond extract and toasted pecans = Toast’y nuts
Coconut, crushed almonds & chocolate = Almond Joy
Blueberries and Lemons = Summer Fresh
Cookie dough and caramel = Serious awesomeness

It’s a great recipe for kids to experiment with different flavors too. And heck, if you’re just a HUGE vanilla ice cream fan (like my husband), feel free to keep it as is. You could even scrape some vanilla beans in it to give it a little extra boast.

Two, I received these hand-made pewter spoons that I’ve been oogling over for a while from a little Etsy shop CrosbyandTaylor. They’re just so stunning and have just the perfect rustic look I wanted. Seriously, isn’t this the most fantastic set? I love them. I couldn’t wait to photograph them this weekend.

Now, if this is your first time making ice cream at home, you should know that it’s not going to come out super firm and scoopable like the gallons you get at the store. Homemade ice cream is like soft serve. It’s freaking delicious, but if you’re looking for some hard scoopable ice cream, this is not what you’re looking for. You can also get it to the “soft serve consistency” and put it in the freezer if you’re a fan of the very scoop-able.

This is a fairly easy recipe in the sense that it’s a matter of mixing everything in a bowl. Ice cream recipes however are a little time consuming in the ‘waiting’ process. After everything is mixed, you will have to refrigerate for 2+ hours. Then place the mixture into the ice cream maker for around 20 minutes. Depending on if you have an ice cream maker or not, it might take longer (for my purposes below, I used my ice cream maker). If you don’t have one however, you can use a 1 lb coffee can and a 3 lb coffee can. This was not the method I used, but you can find a good little tutorial here (Ice Cream Can Method).

Now…. I know you’ve been anxiously awaiting this ice cream recipe, so without further ado, STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM (you know you’re just as excited as I am).

Vanilla Ice Cream Base:

**First place ice cream maker base in freeze overnight. It MUST be VERY cold and frozen before it will make ice cream.

3 eggs
1.5 cups white sugar
2 half pint cartons of heavy whipping cream (or 2 cups)
1.5 cups milk
1 pint carton of half and half (or 2 cups)
2.5-3 T of vanilla extract
Optional – 1 to 1.5 cups finely chopped Strawberries
Optional – 2 drop vanilla-nut flavoring

Beat eggs well. I also remove the little white ropes called the chalazae. They gross me out if I get a little white chunk in my ice cream. But for a little cooking trivia, the chalazae is what anchors the yolk to the egg shell and prevents it from bouncing around in there. Gradually add sugar and whisk until smooth and creamy. Slowly stir in remaining ingredients. Stir well until combined. Place in covered bowl in the fridge for 2+ hours. Once very cold, slowly pour into ice cream maker base. Be careful not to overflow. All ice cream makers are different so you may have some mixture left over. If so, just eat what’s frozen and add more. Enjoy!

**Also, two notes. First, a money saving note. If you have a membership to any club stores (Costco, BJ, Sam’s, etc.) get the half & half and whipping cream there. It is TREMENDOUSLY cheaper. Second, some people really don’t like cooking with raw eggs. To each their own. This can also be made in a sauce pan over the stove. Whisk it all together and continuously stir until boiling. Remove from heat and cool in fridge. This will take a LOT longer to cool for the ice cream machine but just gives you another option.