Strawberry & Cointreau Ice Cream

Huzzah for the British Summer, even in its belated and erratic form.

Some strawberries in the fridge had passed their prime and were a bit icky, but quite tasty, so time for some ice cream. It’s time consuming but requires very little effort, so best as a background task.

I used 300g of the finest (hint!) ready made shop custard to 200g of strawberries.

1. pop custard into a mixing bowl and into the freezer
2. wait 30 minutes
3. retrieve custard and beat with an electric whisk, then return to the freezer – use a soft rubber spatula to push the edges down, otherwise they’ll freeze solid
4. wait 30 minutes
5. retrieve custard and beat again – at this point it will show a little resistance, and you may need a metal spoon to dislodge the edges – again, use a spatula to scrape down the side of the bowl into the middle and return to the freezer
6. wait 30 minutes – it should be starting to get seriously cold now
7. retrieve, beat, and return
8. wait 30 minutes, and in the meantime wash, dry and hull the strawberries and then squish them vigorously with a potato masher (I haven’t added them earlier as I want obvious bits of strawberry in the finished product)
9. retrieve the ice cream which should be stiffening up, beat, add the strawberries, 15mL of Cointreau, beat again, and then return to the freezer
10. wait 30 minutes
11. retrieve and beat once more more before returning to the freezer for a couple of hours, covering the surface with cling film, to avoid ice crystals on the surface
12. as this has a fair amount of water in it from the fruit, it will set hard, so pop it in the fridge for an hour or so before serving (or nuke for five seconds)

Job done. Blah blah homemade custard blah blah life too short blah blah.

Only thing better is getting a South African to say “ice cream”. (They’re getting wise to this one, now, so you will need to be subtle.)

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