Whenever I get a gift card for my birthday or Christmas, I tend to hold onto it for a while. I guess I feel like I should use it for something extra special since it is a gift and then I usually end up saving them forever because nothing seems to be quite good enough.Last fall when I was helping my cousin register at Macy’s for her wedding, I saw a whole bunch of kitchen appliances I really wanted. At the top of my list was an automatic ice cream maker.
Last summer, I bought my mom a “play and freeze” ice cream maker. It’s basically a plastic ball that has a compartment for rock salt and ice, as well as a spot for ice cream ingredients. And you have to roll it around, agitating it for half an hour until the ice cream freezes. I bought it for a camping trip, but when we tried it out at home it quickly got relegated to a shelf in the garage. The lid didn’t seal well so the ice cream mix was kind of leaking out the whole time. And rolling around a ball full of ice, rock salt and ice cream is basically like rolling around a medicine ball. It’s hard work. The end result was a really labor-intensive milkshake since it didn’t really freeze all that well, either.
So I tried to persuade my cousin to register for the automatic ice cream maker, which would be the least she could do for all my maid-of-honor work to come. But she said no.
Then in January, it finally dawned on me that I had several $50 gift cards to Macy’s in my purse, way more than enough to buy an automatic ice cream maker. I spent some time looking over the different models before deciding on a mid-end one. Of course, I also had to make a trip to the grocery store for some ingredients to mix up my first batch of ice cream.
For the first batch, I made strawberry ice cream – with frozen strawberries, since it was the middle of winter. I was a bit impatient and didn’t let the inner chamber of the ice cream maker get cold enough for the first batch. The next time I let it chill overnight and then made peach ice cream – with frozen peaches. The ice cream still came out about soft serve consistency, but it held up well when packed into a sealed container and put in the freezer for several hours.
I put the ice cream maker away for the rest of the winter, as I started on my healthy eating kick. I knew when summer came along I would want to try a few recipes with fresh ingredients. I had in mind one with fresh strawberries, perhaps with cherries and definitely peaches. But I never thought of Meyer lemons until a few vendors at the local farmers market had them for sale. I bought a half dozen last week and set out to make some frozen lemon custard.
I was home alone on Friday and so I attempted to make the frozen lemon custard, which called for tempering eggs, which I've never done before. I was sort of multi-tasking as I was trying to prep the custard by finishing up dinner. I slowly added some of the hot cream mixture into the eggs as described by the recipe I was using. But as soon as I added it all together and continued to cook it over the heat I realized something had gone wrong. The mixture wasn't smooth and creamy - it looked like something had separated out. I decided to go with it anyway, and let it chill in the refrigerator for a while before putting it in the ice cream maker.
The custard thickened up faster than regular ice cream, but there was one problem. A lot of the fat from the heavy whipping cream had separated out into chunks in the ice cream. Before I put it in the freezer, I tasted it and it tasted great - but I just couldn't get over the solidified lumps of fat in the mix. So my first attempt at frozen custard didn't turn out so well.
Since that batch wasn't very edible, I decided to find a recipe that required no cooking to make some more ice cream today. We had fresh strawberries from Andy's Orchard in Morgan Hill. The recipe calls for mixing strawberries, sugar, a pinch of salt and a little bit of fresh lemon and blending it all together. I mixed it into the cream and then chilled the whole mixture for an hour. Then it went straight into the ice cream maker. It was thick and creamy, and most importantly smooth and without any separated fat chunks. It came out about soft serve consistency, but I packed it into a container and put it into the freezer for a few hours. It tasted delicious after it hardened up a bit more.
Photos by Melissa Flores
Strawberry ice cream can be made with fresh strawberries, sugar and heavy cream - and requires no cooking.
Frozen lemon custard, requires tempering eggs and cooking with heavy cream, something I haven't mastered quite yet.
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