Strawberry and Raspberry Ice Cream

Spring is here and at least for the next couple of days so is some warm weather. After recently making some homemade vanilla bean ice cream (recipe to come soon), I was reminded of how delicious homemade ice cream can be. Honestly, there is no comparison to ice cream made at home and the stuff at the store with fillers and thickeners, whether it's organic or not. Have you ever taken the time to read the ingredient list of store bought ice cream? Why they need so many extra ingredients, even in plain vanilla, I shall never understand.

Simple, healthy ingredients always make the best food, at least in my opinion! This dish is very easy to make and you can use fresh or frozen fruit. I have been trying to use up all the berries I froze from last summer, so I'm ready to go for the fresh ones that will be arriving in the next couple of months. Buying berries in season and than freezing them can be a huge money saver and allows you to enjoy those summer time items all winter long. They can be a huge lift to the spirits when your tired of all the normal winter time foods. I love berries in muffins, pancakes. smoothies or making fresh berry syrup to put into yogurt, on ice cream or top off pancakes.

This ice cream is excellent by itself, but even better with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream along side it. You'll be begging for seconds! You can use all strawberries or a mix of strawberries and raspberries. You could also use all raspberries, but depending on how sweet they are, you might need a little bit more sugar.




What You'll Need

• 2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries
• 2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
• 1 cup organic sugar
• 2 tsp. pure, organic vanilla extract
• 2 cups organic whole milk
• 2 cups organic cream
• 1/4 tsp. salt

• Ice cream maker
• Blender
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Large mixing bowl
• Mixing spoon
• Sharp knife
  

Getting Started

1. Using your blender, blend together your whole milk, 1 1/2 cups of strawberries, 1 1/2 cups of raspberries, sugar and salt until mixture is smooth.






2. Pour mixture into large mixing bowl and stir in cream. Chop your last two cups of fruit into small pieces and then add to above mixture, mixing well.






3. Pour into ice cream maker and follow manufacturer instructions for making ice cream.

Note: This filled my ice cream maker to the very top. Depending on what your ice cream makers capacity is, you might have to do this recipe in two batches.



Now the wonderful part, eating it all up! What's great is this recipe doesn't have an excessive amount of sugar and you could easily use a sugar substitute like stevia if you wanted to avoid sugar all together. If you use good quality ingredients, this dessert is actually healthy for you and can be a great desert for kids, especially if you omit the sugar and use stevia. Yes, you read correctly I did write that this could be a healthy dessert, remember the right types of fats are great for our bodies. Our bodies will actually burn the calories better and we need healthy fats for our brains to function properly. Now I'm not saying to go and eat a gallon of ice cream, but you could do much, much worse in the dessert department.