Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

I recently brought home with me a long-time wanted Cuisenart Ice Cream Maker.  Home-made ice cream?  C'mon, who doesn't want that?  In a time when injecting hormones and spraying chemicals into everything you eat is the norm eating organic and knowing what you're putting into your body has become increasingly important.  There are of course certain ways to filter the pure from the tampered, shopping at your local farmer's market and making sure you buy organic food is a good way to begin, the next step should you have the courage and the will-power to do so, is to make everything from scratch, hence my reasoning for getting an ice-cream maker.

Organic milk?  Check.  Organic heavy cream?  Check.  Organic strawberries?  Check.  Organic sugar?  Check.  Vanilla bean?  Check.

Time to give my new Cuisenart Ice Cream Maker a whirl, will it be as easy as 1-2-3 and super-delicious?  Answers to come!

I must first begin by freezing the freezer bowl for 16-24 hours.  The freezer bowl is the large main compartment that will be responsible for churning and making the milk and cream to ice cream.  So as for, easy as 1-2-3?  This already is not looking so good as I need to freeze my bowl for at least a day for best ice-cream results.  But the good news is, once you have your first batch of ice cream made, simply clean the freezer bowl, wipe dry, and store in the freezer- next time you want to make ice-cream it'll be ready for you, no wait needed!

I then put together the ice cream mixtures, which consisted of pulsed strawberries, milk, heavy cream, sugar and vanilla extract.  Once the mixture was made it needed to be refrigerated for 2 hours or even over night.  As my freezer bowl was already frozen and ready to be used, I made the ice-cream mixture and refrigerated for 2 hours.  The refrigeration process of the ice-cream mixture is crucial, if the ice-cream mixture is not chilled in the refrigerator the mixture may not thicken to your likeness once in the freezer bowl.  Once again, as easy 1-2-3?  Not so much.

Once my strawberry ice cream mixture had been chilled for about 2 hours in the refrigerator, I took out my freezer bowl, turned it on and poured in my ice cream mixture.  Turning on your ice cream maker before you pour in your mixture is also crucial.  Since the freezer bowl is quite QUITE freezing, any liquid you pour in will instantly become frozen to the walls.

The ice cream maker whirled away, round and round, slowly the mixture thickens! Oooooh...

And it is so interesting to watch too, even though all it does is go round and round.

As the mixture thickens it takes up more volume.  I followed the direction exactly as said in the manual. My ice-cream maker is able to make about a quart and a half of ice-cream, must remember this!  Though I was supposed to keep my ic cream mixing for about 20 minutes, I found I had to stop the mixing process a little sooner as the ice cream was starting to protrude from the top, but all was fine because the mixture thickened quite nicely into ice cream.

I then stored the freshly home-made ice cream and popped into the freezer for the next day's dessert.  In the mean time, Mr. Borscht was busy eating ice-cream out of the freezer bowl and from the mixing paddle attachment.

And because I love this ice-cream maker as it allows me to make my own fresh ice-cream desserts I find it hard to admit that the ice-cream making process was not as easy as 1-2-3.  The freezing of the freezer bowl was the most painful for me, I envisioned bringing home the ice-cream maker and making ice-cream right away, instead I needed to wait a day.  But I found that the wait was well worth it and only needed to be done once since after then on the freezer bowl would be kept stored in the freezer.  Making the mixture was an easy task while chilling the mixture for a couple of hours made it convenient, allowing me to make the ice-cream mixture before thinking about dinner.  And when dinner is almost over, Wah-La!  You simply take out the ice-cream mixture and put it in the ice-cream maker, 20 minutes later... fresh ice-cream.

But the best part about owning an ice-cream maker is that I have complete control over what is going into the ice-cream, so, if you want to make sure your children or simply you are eating organic ice-cream, making your own is the way to go.  And let me tell you, there's no ice-cream better tasting than home-made ice-cream.

Strawberry Ice-Cream Recipe

Ingredients:

1.5 c fresh strawberries, hulled
3/4 c whole milk
2/3 c granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
1.5 c heavy cream
1.5 tsp pure vanilla extract


Directions:

1.  Chop strawberries in a food processor into the consistency desired.

2.  In a medium-large bowl whisk or use a hand-mixer on low to combine the milk, sugar and salt until the all the sugar has dissolved.

3.  Stir in the heavy cream, vanilla extract and strawberries along with the strawberry juices.

4.  Cover the mixture and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours or overnight.

5.  Turn on your ice-cream making machine and pour mixture into the freezer bowl.  Ice-cream should be done 15-20 minutes, you may leave the ice-cream in for longer or take out sooner depending on the desired consistency.  If a firmer ice-cream is wanted, remove the ice-cream into an air-tight storage container and place in the freezer.

6.  Remove ice-cream from the freezer 15 minutes prior to serving.