Not yet wanting to let go of summer I'm running around like a mad man consuming all the fresh corn and fruits I can get my hands on these days. Even though the morning air has a bit of a chill this time of year, afternoons are still nice and warm and we've had such a nice stretch of cloud free days that I recently had a craving for one more batch of a fruit infused ice cream.
I don't know about you, but I eat ice cream all year round, I just love it too much to relegate to to being a summer only treat. I do however tend to eat different kinds of ice cream depending on the season. My warm weather ice creams tend to be fruit or fresh herb flavored concoctions, and I reserve the deep dark chocolate – coffee – caramel based ice creams for the cooler months. Not really sure why this is, but that's been my craving calendar for a while now and I'm sticking to it.
This is yet another Jeni Britton Bauer recipe, and like everything else we've made from her wildly successful 1st cookbook Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home
Cheers – Steve
Ingredients
for the ice cream:
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
- 2/3 sugar
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
- 1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped out, seeds and bean reserved
for the blackberry sauce:
- 2 cups raspberries, black raspberries, or blackberries
- 1 cup sugar
Instructions
for the ice cream:
- Mix about 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry.
- Whisk the cream cheese and the salt in a medium bowl until smooth.
- Fill a large bowl with ice and water
- Combine the remaining milk, the cream, sugar, and corn syrup, and vanilla seeds and bean 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 back to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring with a rubber spatula, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.
- Gradually whisk the hot cream mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. 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.
- When fully chilled, remove the vanilla bean and pour the ice cream base into your ice cream machine and process per the manufacturers instructions. Pack the 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.
for the blackberry sauce:
- Combine the berries and sugar is a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Continue boiling, stirring occasionally, until it reaches 220℉ (5-8 minutes). Let cool slightly, then force through a sieve to remove the seeds. Refrigerate until cold before using.
to add the sauce swirl to the churned ice cream;
- for a prettier presentation, when scooping the finished vanilla ice cream into a freezer safe container, alternate scoops of the ice cream with spoonfuls of the sauce and "swirl" with the blade of a butter knife to evenly distribute the two.