Light Strawberry ice cream to beat the heat

... light compared to the previous heavy cream stuff I made last time I mean. Now that the ice cream maker is a regular presence in the kitchen I resist the kids requests to buy ice cream from the store, keeping in mind I have several bookmarked recipes for ice cream waiting to be tried.

This is what happened last time, the bowl in which I beat the sugar and the cream, the ice cream maker churner bowl, the spatula, the cups in which we ate the ice cream, my hands, all had a coating of cream which required extra squirts of dish washing liquid to be cleaned. Using heavy cream in that amount regularly did not seem prudent,we had senior citizens at home to worry about as well, not that we are spring chickens either.

strawberries cooking

Why all this trouble, I could make frozen yogurt. When I suggested that DH wrinkled his nose. I checked out the fat free cream, like lots of bloggers/articles had warned the number of ingredients was more than 5, at least heavy cream just had cream. I looked at half and half as the alternative it has cream and milk which was fine by me. So a combination of half and half and 2% milk is what I settled on.

We went strawberry picking last week, fag end of the strawberry season I guess and what we got were ones which were left behind but enough strawberry-ness in them for smoothies and ice creams. Were too mushy and slightly tart to be eaten as is. Apparently this year was endowed with an excellent strawberry season. We could not resist those ruby red tart cherries either so picked some of those too.



The end result was smooth and creamy but not heavy, just perfect for our taste.

The basic recipe is from the Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker booklet.

Light Strawberry Ice Cream
Ingredients
1. 4 cups of chopped strawberries
2. 3/4 cups of sugar (I used raw sugar)
3. 1 1/2 cups half and half
4. 1 1/2 cups of 2% milk
5. 3 tbsp lemon juice
6. 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Method
1. Combine the strawberries, 1/2 cup sugar and lemon juice and bring it to a boil on the stove top. Let it cool under a ice bath. I used a hand blender to break some of the strawberries and left a few in chunks
2. Now mix in the remaining sugar with the half and half and vanilla and mix it with the milk
3. Pour the contents into the ice cream maker and set it to churn, after the 20 minutes are up add the strawberry mixture and let it churn to set

Note:
If not using an ice cream maker, mix in the strawberries when it is completely cool to the milk and freeze. Every 2 hours or so break the frozen mixture with a hand blender/blender. Do this 3 or 4 times before freezing for 6 more hours.

I still think it is the best replacement Mother's Day gift.