So many strawberries....

If you read last week's post, you know that I went into raptures over strawberries. How they made me know that spring had finally arrived. How they reminded me of that trip to Sweden where I had best strawberries I had ever eaten. I indulged my sweet tooth and made strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream. (The staff at work really enjoyed last week's post, I brought the cupcakes in to the store.) 

I had pounds of strawberries left over in my fridge.

Given my crazy work schedule, those poor strawberries sat in my fridge for several days, and they were looking a little sad. What to do, what to do...  I settled on making ice cream.

In addition to our public class schedule, we also offer private classes. Most of our events are for larger groups, usually office team-building, birthday parties, bridal showers. But this week, we had a mother and daughter book a private class, it was a Christmas gift. One of the advantages to booking a private class is that we can completely customize the menu. In this case, the mom was on an anti-inflammatory diet. No gluten, no dairy, no refined sugars, only minimally processed products. She could eat lean proteins, vegetables, fruit, eggs, and sweeteners were limited to things like honey and maple syrup. When we were discussing the menu, she said that she didn't usually eat dessert, but she wanted me to see if I could come up with something. 

Last fall, I had a private event client with a similar set of dietary limitations. She and her family had taken a bit further and were trying to follow the Paleo diet. The concept of the Paleo diet is to eat in the same manner and the same foods as man did in the Paleolithic era, or the Old Stone Age which ended about 12,000 years ago. Paleo is very similar to the anti-inflammatory diet, but it goes further, limiting the types of proteins to only those that are grass-fed, free-range, and/or wild-caught.  Fruits and vegetables are limited to those that would have been available to Paleo man, modern cultivars, such as white potatoes (Russets, Idahos, etc.), are forbidden. For their menu, I did some research into Paleo-friendly desserts and came across a roasted peach ice cream sweetened with honey and made with coconut milk. It was a huge hit.

So, for my mother and daughter clients this week, I pulled out the roasted peach ice cream recipe, and they were equally pleased with the result. We got to talking about how you could modify the recipe, try it with different fruits, use different herbs and spices to infuse flavor into the coconut milk base. When I got home and saw those sad strawberries in my refrigerator, I decided to experiment, and the result is the recipe I present in today's post.

Since I'm not concerned with keeping a Paleo or anti-inflammatory diet, I did use granulated sugar in the recipe. I also thought the flavor of the honey might be too strong in combination with the coconut milk and the strawberries. I think it turned out quite nice.

Strawberry Coconut Milk Ice Cream

Makes 1 ½ quarts

1 ¼ pounds strawberries, stemmed, cored and chopped

¼ cup sugar

2 15-ounce cans unsweetened coconut milk

4 egg yolks

½ cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Place the strawberries and ¼ cup sugar in a saucepan set over medium heat.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the strawberries have softened and their juices have thickened and become jam-like, about 10 to 15 minutes. Mash the berries into a chunky pulp and cool.

Place the coconut milk in a saucepan set over medium heat and bring to a simmer. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and ½ cup sugar. While continuously whisking, slowly ladle the hot coconut milk into the egg and sugar mixture.  When all of the hot coconut milk has been added, transfer the mixture back to the saucepan. Cook, stirring, over medium heat until the custard has thickened and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from the heat and pour the custard through a fine mesh sieve set over a mixing bowl. This will filter out any bits of curdled egg that might be in the custard. Mix in the vanilla and strawberry pulp.

The ice cream base must be chilled prior to processing in an ice cream machine. The classic technique is to place the bowl in an ice bath and stir until cooled to room temperature, then to place the bowl in the refrigerator for several hours. At work, we've come up with a technique that more rapidly chills the base, allowing us to make and process the ice cream within the time constraints of our classes. The technique is to transfer the warm ice cream base into a gallon ziplock bag. Press out all of the air and then plunge the ziplock into a bowl of ice water. Because the ziplock bag allows more surface area to be in contact with the ice water, the ice cream base will chill down much more quickly. 

 

Once the base is cold, process it in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. Most machines will take it to a soft-serve consistency. Once that consistency is reached, transfer the processed ice cream to an air-tight container and freeze until firm.