With fresh strawberries and simple ingredients, you can make your own Strawberry Ice Cream at home! Plus check out my secret ingredient for soft, scoopable ice cream!
I found another casualty of our move.
I had decided to make some homemade strawberry ice cream with some of the in season strawberries. I made a base, chopped up and puréed some strawberries, mixed it together and poured it into the freezer bowl for my ice cream maker. I switched it on. There is a horrible loud, grinding motor sound and the bowl did not turn. I tried again. Nothing.
I was instantly annoyed, because if you have ever used an ice cream maker before, you know that the mixture starts to freeze IMMEDIATELY. I quickly changed direction and scraped it out of the freezer bowl and into a regular freezer-safe container. I thought maybe I could get away with not churning it.
Can I? The short answer is that I’m not really sure. It was delicious, but hard as a freaking rock! This didn’t really surprise me, because homemade ice cream (especially strawberry ice cream) tends to do that regardless- and for my re-do, I was going to try and find a fix for it.
So after I scooped up a replacement machine, I did some reading- there were various potential solutions involving the milk vs. cream content, eggs, sugar, etc, but what really caught my idea was the idea of using a VERY SMALL of alcohol to keep it from freezing totally. I figured this was the easiest theory to test, and it seemed like the most logical one to me- you know, since alcohol doesn’t freeze. Duh. Why didn’t I think of that?
Worked like a charm! The ice cream was scoopable and delicious- absolutely perfect!
Strawberry Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 cup cream
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 cups fresh strawberries coarsely mashed with a fork or potato masher
- 2 T vodka
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together the milk, cream and vanilla.
- Whisk in the sugar until dissolved, then add in vodka. Set in the fridge to chill for 30-60 minutes.
- Pour the ice cream base into the ice cream maker according to manufacturer directions.
- When the ice cream has reached the consistency of whipped cream, add in the strawberries. When the ice cream looks mostly solid, transfer to a freezer-safe container to finish freezing before serving.
Sarah @ The Gold Lining Girl says
That’s such a GREAT idea!!! Alcohol… makes perfect sense. That’s awesome! Both the photos and the ice cream are beautiful!
Go Go Go Gourmet says
Thanks! I’m just glad to finally find a solution to my irritation. That ice cream maker is going to be working OVERTIME this spring/summer/fall for sure!
Jen @ Baked by an Introvert says
I would have never thought to use alcohol. This is such a neat trick. This ice cream looks delightful with all of those fresh strawberries!