Roasted Strawberry Ice Cream Recipe

We may have been a little overzealous snapping up all the berries that are on sale, but could you blame us? It's the end of summer and the supermarket was overflowing with fresh berries. We heaped boxes of of blueberries and raspberries into our cart, and just when we were about to leave, we couldn't resist buying these sweet-smelling strawberries. 

There was many of us, and we (my nieces) ate as much as we physically could. But 3 kilos of strawberries is still hard to plow through, and so just when the final box was starting to get a little soft, I decided to roast the strawberry and make some ice cream. 

 We had visited the Original Farmers Market in LA on the previous week, and came back with a particularly impressive bottle of apple balsamic vinegar from Temecula Olive Oil Company, which I drizzled over the strawberries. Because of the young 'uns at our dinner table, we stuck to the conservative side of ice cream making, and omitted the more adventurous miso flavour found in the original recipe, and used a quick squeeze of lemon to balance the sweetness.

The strawberry ice cream was brightly flavoured, and is so creamy, it's scoopable straight out of the freezer. It was the creamiest ice cream I'd had! Unlike the blueberries ice cream which we tried earlier in the month, where the blueberries were blended, we love how the chunks of macerated strawberries were mixed in with the ice cream. 

Roasted Strawberry Ice Cream 
Original Recipe from David Lebovitz

INGREDIENTS
For the roasted strawberries:
1 pound (450g) strawberries
3 tablespoons golden syrup, maple syrup, or light-flavored honey
1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
a few turns of black pepper

For the ice cream custard:
1 3/4 cups (430ml) heavy cream
1 cup (250ml) whole milk
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
5 large egg yolks (4 jumbo egg yolks*)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
A few drops of fresh lemon juice

STEPS
To make the roasted strawberries:
1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC).

2. Destem the strawberries and cut them in quarters. Mix with golden syrup, balsamic vinegar, and black pepper, and arrange them in a single-layer in a wide shallow baking dish with high sides. 

3. Roast the berries on the upper rack of the oven, stirring once or twice during roasting, until they are soft and the juices have thickened, about 60 - 90 minutes. Remove from the oven and transfer to a small bowl. (Taste and adjust the sweetness with caster sugar or more honey, if your strawberries are not sweet.) Let cool to room temperature, and then refrigerate. These roasted strawberries can be kept up to three days in the fridge. 

To make the ice cream custard
4. Pour the cream into a 2L bowl, and then place the bowl in an ice-bath. Set a strainer over the inner bowl over the cream. 

5. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar. 

6. Gradually pour about half a cup of warmed milk into the yolks, whisking as you pour. This tempers the eggs and prevents them from scrambling. 

7. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly as you do, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula. Remove from heat immediately, and strain into the bowl of heavy cream. Stir over the ice until cool. Add the vanilla extract and refrigerate to chill thoroughly, preferably overnight.

8. When ready to complete the ice cream, mix the roasted strawberries with the custard, then stir in the lemon juice. Churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.


*I've noticed that USA large egg yolks are pretty small in comparison to Australia's or Singapore's. If in doubt, the egg yolk from one large egg should be 18g.