Strawberry Ice Cream

On the odd occasion, I can't resist making some gourmet homemade ice cream for the fam.  Especially because it isn't easy to find additive free ice cream.  And nothing beats the flavour of real fruit in this recipe!  I even resisted the urge to use my fave ingredient in this recipe (coconut) and make it with coconut milk... though next time I might do just that...  

Ingredients (makes about 1.5L):

600ml pure cream

350ml milk

3 free range eggs

250g raw sugar

Pinch of sea salt

2 tsp vanilla essence

Juice of half a lemon

250g strawberries, washed and hulled

Method:

1.  Into a medium saucepan on low-medium heat, add all the ingredients except lemon juice and strawberries.  Whisk continually for around 10 minutes or until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture coats the back of a metal spoon.

(In Thermomix, add all the ingredients except lemon juice and strawberries and cook 10min/80deg/sp3)

2.  Blend the hulled strawberries and stir into the ice cream mixture along with the lemon juice.

(Add washed and hulled strawberries, and lemon juice to ice cream mixture in Thermomix and blend for 30 seconds, slowly turning the dial to speed 6)

3.  At this point, if you have an ice cream machine, churn the mixture through the ice cream machine.  Otherwise, pour ice cream mixture into a large container and put into the freezer for 2-3 hours.   

4.  Pour cooled ice cream mixture into a blender or Thermomix and blend on high speed for around 30 seconds (speed 9 in Thermomix).  Pour back into container. 

5.  Put back into the freezer until completely frozen.  If possible, stir the mixture a couple of times during the freezing process.