Roasted Strawberry Stracciatella Ice Cream {and a Giveaway!}
Jump to the recipe
I’m so excited, I don’t even know where to begin. After a couple of months – and in particular the last couple of weeks – of craziness at work, I’m finally done with the project I’ve been working on for the last few months. Furthermore, it’s Memorial Day weekend and I’m taking a couple of days off to visit family in DC. Goodbye migraines, hello summer sunshine, family, and friends!
On top of all of that, I also have a wonderful new ice cream recipe to share with you AND just in case you need an ice cream maker so that you can make said recipe, we have a giveaway for a brand new Cuisinart ICE-21 ice cream machine courtesy of BigKitchen! BigKitchen is a kitchenware retailer located in Tampa, FL with tons of great stuff for the kitchen and they’re currently constructing a state-of-the-art test kitchen where they’ll film demonstration videos. Pretty cool, huh?
Ok, on to the recipe, because seriously, you need to try this. I had the hardest time deciding on a recipe because frankly, armed with David Lebovitz’ Perfect Scoop and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, it is so hard to choose! I would have to make ice cream at least once a week just to get to my top picks before the end of the summer. But because strawberries are looking so perfect at the store these days that I just had to try strawberry ice cream.
My sister and brother-in-law introduced me to Jeni’s ice cream nearly a year ago when I visited them in Ohio and I was instantly hooked. But before now, the only recipe I had made from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream was the bourbon baked apple sorbet. It was phenomenal and I’ve been wanting to try out her method which uses a corn starch mixture and cream cheese rather than the more traditional egg yolk custard base. For this recipe, Jeni has you roast the strawberries first which reduces the water content (no ice in my strawberry ice cream, thank you very much!) and deepens the strawberry flavor. Buttermilk further enhances the berry, while the rest of the dairy makes this one of the creamiest, smoothest ice creams I’ve ever had.
So what is stracciatella, you ask? Well, remember the raspberry swirl brownie ice cream? I just can’t seem to make ice cream without chocolate and I was especially interested in trying out the stracciatella technique. Stracciatella (derived from stracciato, or “torn apart” in Italian) is made by drizzling melted chocolate into ice cream (or more traditionally, gelato) in the very last stages of churning. When the chocolate hits the cold ice cream, it freezes and hardens. And because it’s added in such a thin stream, the chocolate breaks up and becomes incorporated throughout the ice cream. If the idea of speckling your ice cream with wonderful little flecks of chocolate appeals to you, then you will love this ice cream. Not your thing? Just skip the stracciatella step and have plain (and delicious) roasted strawberry ice cream!
Now, we already have a Cusinart ice cream maker and I kind of figured this new one would be just the same as our model from three years ago the ICE-20), so I was really pleasantly surprised when I found that this one works even better than the old one! The only complaint I really had with the old ice cream maker was that the ice cream built up a thick layer around the sides of the freezer bowl. It made it hard to scrape the ice cream out at the end, plus that part didn’t really get churned properly. The new Cuisinart ice cream maker has a new – and apparently much improved – paddle. We didn’t have any ice cream stick to the bowl at all! The perfectly churned ice cream came out quickly and easily and nothing was wasted. This is the very same model that Jeni used to develop her recipes for Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, so you know it’s got to be good. Plus, this new one is fun turquoise color perfect for summer (or just feeling summery!).
So you want one of your very own? Well you’re in luck, because one lucky Pixelated Crumb reader will win a free Cuisinart ice cream maker courtesy of the wonderful folks at BigKitchen!
Giveaway Details #
This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Sarah F. for winning the Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker giveaway and thanks to everyone who participated!!
This giveaway is open to USA residents and will be open until Saturday, June 2nd at 11:59 pm ET. The winner will be selected on random.org on June 3rd. The winner will be announced on Pixelated Crumb and I will send her/him an e-mail.
To enter the Cuisinart ICE-21 Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker Giveaway:
Head over to BigKitchen.com and leave a comment below about something you found there that you’d like in your kitchen.
For Additional Entries
For more chances to win, complete one or more of the following steps and write a separate comment below for each extra entry (e.g. “I follow @pixelatedcrumb on Twitter”). If you already do any of the following, just leave a comment letting me know. You get an extra chance to win with each entry!
- Follow @pixelatedcrumb on Twitter
- Follow @BigKitchenStore on Twitter
- Tweet about the giveaway (be sure to include @pixelatedcrumb and @BigKitchenStore in the tweet)
- “Like” Pixelated Crumb on Facebook
- “Like” BigKitchen on Facebook
- Subscribe to Pixelated Crumb via RSS or e-mail
Roasted Strawberry Stracciatella Ice Cream
Adapted from Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream
You may wonder why the recipe has you roast a whole pint of strawberries when you don't actually need all of the puree. If you don't fill the baking dish, the strawberries will scorch or dry out. You can use the extra puree as a topping on the ice cream, in yogurt, flavor buttercream, or drizzle on chocolate cake.
For the chocolate, you can use whatever kind you like as long as they're not chocolate chips and it's 60% cocoa or less - more than that and it's harder to melt smoothly. Chocolate chips have additives that allow them to retain their shape at higher temperatures (i.e. baking) and are not suitable for this recipe. We're big fans of bittersweet chocolate, so we used 60% chocolate.
When I bake, I usually use dried buttermilk, but for this recipe, I would recommend using the real deal for this ice cream. Wondering what to do with the rest of the buttermilk? We made blueberry buttermilk pancakes, buttermilk biscuits, and a buttermilk raspberry and blueberry cake. It was a tasty week.
Ingredients
For the roasted strawberries:
- 1 pint strawberry, hulled and sliced 1/2 inch thick
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
For the ice cream base
- 1 1/2 cups whole milk
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 ounces (4 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
- 1/4 cup buttermilk
- 5 oz good quality chocolate (do not use chocolate chips)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Combine the strawberries and sugar in an 8 inch square glass or ceramic baking dish, stirring gently to mix well. Roast for 8 minutes, or until just soft. Let cool slightly. Puree in a food processor with the lemon juice. Measure 1/2 cup of the pureed berries and refrigerate the rest of the puree for another use.
- Mix about 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry. Whisk the cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. Fill a large bowl with ice and water.
- Combine the remaining milk, cream, sugar and corn syrup in a 4-quart saucepan, bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat, and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring the mixture back to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring with a heat-proof spatula, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from heat.
- Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture in to the cream cheese until smooth. Add the buttermilk and reserved strawberry puree and blend well. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes.
- Pour the ice cream mixture into the frozen canister of electric ice cream freezer and run according to directions of ice cream maker. While the ice cream is freezing, prepare the chocolate by melting it over a double boiler. Transfer the melted chocolate to a container with a spout, such as a liquid measuring cup, or a squeeze bottle. When the ice cream is nearly finished churning, add the chocolate, drizzling it in as thin a stream as possible.
- Pack the finished ice cream into a storage container, press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface, and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze in the coldest part of your freezer until firm, at least 4 hours. Makes about 1 quart.