Ice cream is a favorite dessert around here, and making it yourself is easy and rewarding. We have tried many different flavors, following the fruit from spring to late summer. Here are two I created over the last week or so. Tonight we had the raspberry and boy, was it delicious. It is a bit early for local raspberries but you should be able to find them at the farmer's markets around town, if not now, quite soon.
The strawberry passion fruit variety came together quite nicely. I had a bit of a stock pile from a month's worth of boxes. They get a bit wrinkly with time but tend to last quite awhile. Just leave them in a bowl on the counter. When you cut them open, they should be full of seeds and juice, if they are dry, they are past their prime. But what I loved about this flavor was the sweet strawberry in the foreground with a hint of the warm, tropical passion fruit in the background. They really go well together. You could use these flavors in the soda as well.
Strawberry Passion Fruit Ice Cream
serves 4-6
1 pint ripe strawberries
4-6 passion fruit
1/2 lemon
1 cup organic cream
1 cup organic whole milk
1/3 cup sugar, plus more for fruit mix
dash of vanilla
In medium bowl, combine cream, milk, 1/3 cup sugar and vanilla. Chill.
Clean and hull strawberries. Blend or mash until smooth.
Cut passion fruit in half and scoop contents into a sieve over a bowl. Push as much of the liquid through the sieve as you can. Combine fruit. Add juice from 1/2 lemon and extra sugar in small amounts until mix is just a bit too sweet (3-6 tbs).
Add fruit mix to cream mix.
Pour into ice cream maker and follow manufacturers instructions.
Raspberry Ice Cream
As an alternative, use 2 cups fresh or frozen (softened) raspberries mashed until smooth in place of strawberries and passion fruit. Add only 2-4 tbs sugar. Otherwise follow the recipe as written above.
