Strawberry Ice Cream

As a kid we knew only two flavors...vanilla and strawberry. Strawberry was my favorite because of its wonderful smell and its color. Although it had been only some years that I have tasted strawberry, back then because of only the strawberry ice cream I thought strawberry was the tastiest fruit of the world. Sweet and super yummy!!! Who knew it will turn out to be an almost sugarless fruit!!

Although I still adore this particular berry as super stylish...I hate it eating all by itself only. So last week, when I found boxes of fresh strawberries stacked in one side of the super market...my mind went blank and for a moment I only thought of making the classic girlish strawberry ice cream. Its pink, its yummy and I have two hands full of strawberries...do I need more reasons to make this ice cream???

Its almost pouring in Abidjan. From day to night....its only raining. I think someday I might feel disgust about this. But I love this chilled weather (although one of my cat has caught cold and coughing like a baby), and when it rains in the evening I switch off all the lights and only my table lamp remains alive....the sound of rains coming from the other side of the curtain with the dreamy fuzzy light makes my room feel all sleepy and mysterious. I feel like a princess, captivated in an enchanted fort, looking through the window and waiting to go outside. Makes me feel so sooo damn boring...that I take my umbrella and decide to take a tiny stroll outside. Do I need to say that I love it????

Strawberry Ice Cream
Serves 6-7

Ingredients:

• 250gm fresh hulled strawberries (frozen will also do. Thaw them before using.)
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Note: Since in India, its very expensive to buy strawberries, feel free to use strawberry syrup in place of that. Use almost 2 tbsp syrup to this recipe. Will give you almost equal taste. You can also use strawberry essence. But in that case you might need to use some pink food color.

Method:

• Mix the strawberries with lemon and half of the sugar. Leave them covered in the refrigerator.
• Bring the heavy whipping cream, whole milk, vanilla extract and rest of the sugar to boil.
• In a big bowl whisk together the eggs.
• When the milk comes to the boiling point and all the sugar dissolves, pour the milk little by little into the eggs. Keep whisking the eggs to prevent any kind of scrambling. If you think you have scrambles eggs, strain the mixture through a sieve.
• Pour the mixture to a saucepan and put it on a low flame. Stir continuously to prevent boiling and sticking to the bottom of the pan for 2-3 minutes, or until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of the spatula.
• Remove from the flame and put into a bowl.
• Take the strawberries from the fridge and grind them to a fine paste. You can keep some to chop and add later.
• Mix the strawberry paste to the custard and let it come to room temperature. Then make ice-cream using an ice cream machine, and according to its users manual.
• If you do not have any ice cream machine then freeze the mixture with a plastic wrap to prevent any ice crystal formation. until its set. Then again blend the entire mixture until smooth.
• Repeat this process for 2 more times. Finally you will have something of the soft serve consistency.
• Freeze again for 2-3 hours with a plastic wrap on top to prevent formation of ice-crystals.