Creamy Strawberry Swirl Ice Cream
A creamy French vanilla ice cream with thick ribbons of fresh strawberry sauce for an easy yet impressive make-ahead dessert that children and adults will both love.
Ingredients
Strawberry Swirl Sauce
- 1 pound strawberries
- ¼ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
Vanilla Ice Cream
- 4 egg yolks
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 vanilla bean or 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
Make Strawberry Swirl Sauce
- Prep strawberries. Rinse strawberries and remove stems. Roughly quarter them.
- Cook strawberry mixture. Add the strawberries to a saucepan with the sugar and lemon juice and place over medium heat. Once you hear the pan bubbling, give everything a stir and reduce heat. Let strawberries cook down and release natural juices for approximately 7 minutes.
- Puree strawberries. At this point you can either use a potato masher to create a chunky swirl or you can transfer the strawberries to a food processor and blitz until you have a smooth strawberry sauce. (I used a food processor to obtain a smooth puree.)
- Store strawberries. Let the strawberry swirl come to room temperature and then store in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Make Vanilla Ice Cream
- Start the custard base. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the sugar together until it turns a light yellow color. In a medium saucepan, combine the heavy cream and the milk. Cut the vanilla bean pod in half, and scrape it into the saucepan with the milk mixture, stirring to distribute. Heat the milk mixture over medium-low heat, until it begins to simmer. Remove from heat.
- Temper the eggs. Slowly add milk mixture to eggs and sugar, stirring constantly so you don’t cook the eggs to create your custard base. Add the custard base back to the saucepan.
- Cook the custard. Return to heat until temperature reaches 165° F. Stirring constantly so the eggs in the custard don’t cook on the edges of the pan. Visually, you’ll know the custard is done once it starts to thicken. Remove from heat.
- Chill your custard. Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve, and store either in a bowl covered with plastic wrap or in an airtight container in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.
- Churn the custard. Once the custard base is chilled, stir in salt. Then pour it into your ice cream maker and process according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. (With my Cuisinart Compressor Ice Cream Maker, this took 30-35 minutes.)
- Layer the custard and the strawberry. Layer the strawberry sauce and the custard base in a freezer-safe container and use a butter knife to swirl the two together, being careful not to over-swirl (trust me, you want there to be some distinct ribbons of strawberry in every scoop). Freeze for 3-4 hours or until the ice cream reaches your desired, scoopable texture.
Notes
Note: If the ice cream is too hard to scoop, set it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to thaw. This will ensure the ice cream thaws more evenly vs. only around the edges.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!