I am kinda hooked on to this egg free ice cream base, which Jeni of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams At Home has discovered. And why not, it’s super easy, free of hassle to cook the custard perfectly and nonetheless creamier than an egg based ice cream. And it comes without eggs, so you can feed it to a larger set of people and make them happy.
This is my third attempt at her ice cream base, and I am a fan! I made lychee ice cream and mango and blueberry popsicle s {I didn’t write about those popsicles, we gobbled them up fast before I could take pictures} using the glorious base and they were super fun!
This time I took a recipe from her book and made this roasted strawberries and buttermilk ice cream. A delish way to use the last of the strawberries stash from the freezer. In fact, I had reserved them for making an ice cream only {even before I bought her book}.
Roasting the strawberries concentrated the flavor, with evaporating some of the water. And a touch of lemon juice and buttermilk helped drawing out the subtle tartness of the fruit. One spoon full of this luscious ice cream, and you are straight into the spring heaven.
There is nothing like a homemade ice cream. The one which is devoid of any artificial colors or essence. You can play around with ingredients, flavors, fruits, veggies or for that matter even herbs. Yeah, a basil ice cream next has been playing on mind. Till then, enjoy this lovely full of spring roasted strawberries ice cream.
Ingredients
Roasted Strawberries:
250 gm strawberries (hulled and sliced)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Ice Cream Base:
1 1/2 cup whole milk
2 tbsp cornstarch
4 tbsp cream cheese (I used Amul cream cheese spread)
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1 1/4 cup low fat cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp honey
1/4 cup buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190 degree C. Combine the sugar in glass or ceramic baking dish, stirring gently to mix well. Roast for 8 minutes or until just soft (increase the roasting time by 5 minutes, if using frozen strawberries). Let cool slightly.
- Puree the strawberries with lemon juice in a food processor.
- For ice cream base, mix about 2 tbsp of milk with corn starch in a small bowl to make a slurry.
- Whisk together cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth.
- Combine the remaining milk, cream, sugar, honey in a sauce pan and bring to rolling boil over medium high heat and boil for 4 minutes.
- Remove from heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring the mixture back to boil and boil over medium high heat and cook stirring about 1 minute. Remove from heat.
- Gradually whisk in the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Let the mixture come to room temperature.
- Add the strawberry puree and buttermilk and mix well. Chill it in fridge, at least 5 hours or overnight.
- Freeze the ice cream in ice cream maker as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Store in freezer for another 4 hours before serving.