We are growing so much basil in the garden lately, and it grows so quickly, that we need to find creative uses for it.
This ice cream is made with a Cuisinart Ice Cream maker (mine is the white model), which makes life so much easier for me than an old, wooden, hand-crank ice cream maker that involves ice and salt.
I have made fresh, homemade strawberry ice cream before, but I wanted to go the extra mile on the next iteration and add in the basil. It is one of my best flavors to date. So delicious.
Ingredients
- 2 cups half-and-half
- 1 cup cream
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 Tb chopped, fresh basil (please don’t use dried basil, ewww)
Strawberry “jam”
- 1 cup of diced strawberries boiled down with 1/4 cup sugar until it becomes the consistency of a runny jam
So here’s what you do.
First, you have to make your strawberry “jam.” I call it jam only because it’s kind of like jam when it’s done. It’s not actual jam but a little more runny. You will need to make this the day before and let it sit in the fridge because it has to be cold in order to add it to your ice cream mixer.
The next day, you mix the half and half and sugar and let sit in the fridge for 30 minutes. Take it out and mix it one more time. Add the cream, salt, and chopped basil. Put this all in a blender (I highly prefer a Ninja blender) and blend it with four good long 2-second pulses.
Next, put that mixture immediately into the ice cream maker. Have the strawberry “jam” ready, but don’t use it yet. You’ll wait until the ice cream is nearly done and then add your jam in, careful spoonful by careful spoonful. Let the mixer do its work a minute or two more, and then your ice cream is done.
I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do. You can adjust as necessary–when I first made this, I just went with what looked good. I’m not the type of person to measure things when I first create a recipe, so it took some thinking to remember how I did it, and how to tell you to do it.
By the way, make sure to store your ice cream in an appropriate container. You can’t just stick it in any plastic container. There are really cute containers online that are created specifically to keep your ice cream from getting freezer burn. Sumo is one of my favorite brands, as is Tovolo.
Savillum 