Strawberry Ice Cream

America's great pink ice cream: a custard base enriched with egg yolks and swirled with a concentrated fresh strawberry purée, producing a scoopable, deeply flavoured ice cream that tastes of summer preserved in cold

Origin: United States (19th–20th century)

From the journey of Strawberry.

Strawberry ice cream has been America's second favourite ice cream flavour for over a century, after vanilla. Its history in the United States runs from the ice cream parlours of the 1840s and 1850s, when hand-cranked freezers first brought ice cream to a mass market, through the soda fountains of the early 20th century to the vast commercial ice cream industry centred around California's strawberry crop. President James Madison's wife Dolley reportedly served strawberry ice cream at Madison's second inaugural banquet in 1813, one of the first documented appearances of the flavour in America. The commercial ice cream industry expanded enormously after the Second World War, and strawberry became a fixture of the classic Neapolitan three-flavour block alongside chocolate and vanilla. The challenge of strawberry ice cream is retaining the fresh, floral quality of the fruit through freezing; overcooked strawberry purée tastes jammy rather than fresh, and artificial strawberry flavouring tastes of nothing so much as synthetic chemicals.

Ingredients

Strawberry component

  • 700 g fresh ripe strawberries, hulled
  • 100 g caster sugar
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice

Custard base

  • 500 ml double cream (heavy cream)
  • 250 ml whole milk
  • 150 g caster sugar
  • 5 large egg yolks
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1 pinch fine salt

Method

  1. Macerate the strawberries: hull and halve the strawberries. Toss with 100g sugar and lemon juice. Leave for 1 hour at room temperature until they have released their juice.
  2. Blend two-thirds of the macerated strawberries (with their juice) to a smooth purée. Chop the remaining third into small pieces. Combine the purée and the chopped pieces together. Refrigerate.
  3. Make the custard base: heat the cream and milk in a saucepan until just below boiling. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and 150g caster sugar until pale and thick.
  4. Pour the hot cream mixture slowly onto the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Return to the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon (about 78–80°C). Do not boil.
  5. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and salt. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Press cling film onto the surface and cool completely in the refrigerator; at least 2 hours or overnight.
  6. Stir the cold strawberry purée and pieces into the cold custard base. Churn in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer's instructions until the consistency of soft-serve; about 25–30 minutes.
  7. Transfer to a freezer container, press parchment onto the surface and freeze for at least 2 hours until scoopable. Remove from the freezer 5 minutes before serving.

Notes

The quality of fresh strawberries is the determining factor. This recipe is not made with strawberry extract or artificial flavouring; it relies entirely on real fruit. If the strawberries are out of season and tasteless, the ice cream will be tasteless. Frozen strawberries (thawed) can substitute in a pinch, but the colour will be less vivid and the flavour different. A teaspoon of rose water added with the vanilla gives a beautiful floral note reminiscent of fraises des bois.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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