Strawberries and chocolate ice cream

Strawberry ice cream is said to be one of the world’s most popular flavours. And it is easy to understand why! This time, we will test what happens when we skip the usual mashing and create an ice cream base flavoured with strawberry juice, and use the chopped-up strawberries as tasty add-ins!

Strawberries – yet another ice cream version

Avid readers of this blog have probably noticed that there is no shortage of strawberry ice cream recipes here. But as with all good things in life, there is always room for more!

The basic premise for this recipe is a simple one: instead of simply mashing up the strawberries and creating a purée (which I dare say probably is the most common way of making strawberry ice cream) we will extract the sweet juice of the berries for the base, and then add the actual sliced-up pieces of the strawberries to the ice cream towards the very end.

To delight all fans of chocolate, we will also add a tasty net of melted dark chocolate to our strawberry ice cream.

Some people prefer their ice creams very smooth, but I’m quite fond of some resistance. However, this strawberry ice cream will turn out quite smooth despite the added pieces of strawberry. The reason is simple: we will cut the strawberries into rather small, thin pieces,  and ensure that they be properly macerated before they end up in the ice cream.

Cut the strawberries into thin, fine pieces. The smaller, the better as the sugar they will soak up while macerating should ensure that they don’t freeze into nasty, rock-hard pieces of frozen fruit later on.

Maceration? That means that our pieces of strawberries first will be softened up by being mixed with some sugar and set aside for, preferably, about two hours.

The strawberries have been turned into fine-cut pieces and have been mixed with some sugar (and the lemon juice). They have already started to give off their (sweetened) juice.

Maceration will not only ensure that the berries become sweeter and tastier, but will also bring us the strawberry juice we need for the base!

After a couple of hours of maceration, use a sieve or something similar to collect the strawberry juice-liquid. Just be careful not to mash up the now very softened pieces of the strawberries in the process!

The juice-liquid will be added to our base. Set aside the remaining pieces of strawberry: we will add them towards the very end!

Even lovers of smooth ice cream should appreciate the sweet softness of these pieces of strawberry: the added sugar should help to avoid that they turn unpleasantly deep-frozen and icy when added to the final ice cream.

The foundation: a trusty Philadelphia (American) style-base with fresh dairy

While any base recipe should work fine for this recipe, I have a special fondness for the fresh Philadelphia-style ice cream when it comes to berries. The main elements are straightforward and can typically be picked out straight from your fridge: we won’t be using any eggs, just fresh cream and milk (and sugar). And some vanilla, for added flavour complexity.

Making the base is exceedingly simple: just mix the ingredients together in a bowl, whisk well and pour it all into your ice cream machine (or still-freeze in your freezer, if you don’t have any dedicated ice cream machine around).

When you have mixed the milk, cream, sugar and vanilla – don’t forget to add the strawberry juice-liquid you have collected!

With the addition of the strawberry juice-liquid, our base is basically completed!

Adding the strawberries

When the base has churned for a while and has firmed up a bit, it is time to add our pieces of strawberries. Remember – if you add them too early, they are bound to sink to the bottom. While it is possible to only add them to the base once the churning has been completed, I like to believe that they have a better chance of staying together if added during the churning.

Adding the chocolate

Chocolate can of course also be added to the ice cream in a number of ways. If you do not want to bother with any melting, simply chop up the chocolate in fine pieces and add them towards the end of the churning just like the pieces of strawberry.

However, I wanted to see what could be done with some melted chocolate. Melting chocolate can also be done in a number of ways – I opted for one of the easiest: less than half a minute in my micro-wave oven had ensured that my dark piece of chocolate had melted so it could be drizzled over the ice cream!

When melting chocolate in a micro-wave oven, it is a good idea to work your way to the melting point by putting your piece through several (short) sessions, allowing you to stop at the right time!

Adding the chocolate to the strawberry ice cream

Now, if you only like strawberry and don’t like chocolate, don’t bother with rest of the recipe.

If you would like to check out the combination of the two, however, read on!

Strawberry ice cream (with some of the pieces of the actual strawberries visible)

It is very simple – just drizzle the melted chocolate over the ice cream.

If you are really into chocolate – spread half of the ice cream in a freezer-safe tray and drizzle over the chocolate. Then cover up with the rest of the ice cream and drizzle another layer over the top!

I only drizzled chocolate on top of the ice cream. If you want more chocolate, feel free to consider another layer in the middle of the ice cream …

The end result: a treat for strawberry lovers

The Strawberry ice cream with chocolate – with (just) one layer of chocolate, make sure that you offer up scopes that contains both strawberries and chocolate!

A close-up of scope of our Strawberry ice cream (the chocolate parts not visible from this side)

It is surprising how many nice strawberry ice cream recipes there are. I was surprised to find out that even before adding the pieces of strawberry, the base itself (flavoured only with the juice) clearly tasted like strawberry ice cream should. When the delicious pieces were added, the flavour became even more pronounced. As expected, the maceration also ensured that the pieces remained pleasant when frozen into the ice cream: no “ice pebble effect” there, in other words. And chocolate is always nice, particularly when paired with such a pleasant companion as strawberry.

So – widen your horizon, look out over the (mental?) strawberry fields around you and give this recipe a try!