Vanilla & Masala

Although I am a dessert person, I have never been much of an ice cream person – not even when I am PMSing. Back in India, the only frozen dessert I enjoyed was crunchy chocolate bars and my flavor preferences extended to just butterscotch and vanilla ice cream. When I moved to the US, I soon realized that this country not only has a giant dairy industry, it also has a humongous offshoot i.e. the frozen desserts space. I was blown away by the variety of flavors and the different forms of ice creams that are available here, for example – ice cream cakes and sandwiches, gelatos and affogatos, mochi ice cream, ice creams shakes and the list is endless. Nevertheless, this diversity and novelty was still unsuccessful in making an ice cream enthusiast out of me.

Like a good host and a guest does, I always accompany ice cream lovers among friends and family to ice cream shops. I have done that many a times while visiting a friend in Seattle – at Salt and Straw and Sirena Gelato and while he was visiting me here in St. Louis – at Clementine’s Naughty and Nice and Jeni’s Splendid Ice-creams. I have indulged him by participating in flavor tasting activities, asking important questions like “Does this contain egg? or “Does the waffle cone contain egg?” and sharing more than two totally wacky flavors of ice cream on each visit. On a couple of occasions I have been rewarded for being a good sport with two recipe books that I quickly tucked away in my tiny bookshelf; what use would I have for them anyway!

Yesterday, when I was cleaning the said shelf, I glanced over the books and decided to pick up the tiny “Perfect Homemade Ice cream” by Jeni Britton Bauer. While flipping through the recipes I came across one called “Roasted Strawberry and Buttermilk Ice cream”. The title intrigued me and surprisingly I had all but one ingredient listed in it. This was definitely a sign – an opportunity to make something for the first time AND a chance to use up two big cartons of very ripe strawberries and a carton of leftover heavy cream – in one go!

So instead of cooking batch meals for the upcoming work week, I dedicated my Saturday afternoon to an 8 hour long experiment. I quickly and meticulously made the two components – the roasted strawberry puree and the ice cream base according to the recipe instructions. Although everything else was in place, I was still missing a vital part of the experiment – the ice cream maker! I decided to not let its absence hamper my unlikely enthusiasm for ice cream for once and decided to make good use of my Kitchen Aid stand mixer instead. I placed the mixer bowl with the ice cream mixture along with the paddle attachment in the freezer and turned down the apartment cooling to as low as I could take (clearly only one of which was actually going to help!). For the next 3 hours I made several trips between the freezer and the stand mixer, alternating between freezing the ice cream for 30 minutes and whisking for 2 minutes. I eventually got tired because I had no clue about the ice cream’s ‘done-ness’ and then poured the mixture into a 9 inch loaf pan, covered the surface with parchment and froze it for another 4 hours.

I was initially going to let it freeze overnight, but then decided to test if it had solidified. I warmed up an ice cream scoop and dug in and Voila! it came out effortlessly. I dug in to get two more scoops into my bowl and resumed watching ‘Better Call Saul’. I had read on Reddit that there is a chronological order to watching Breaking Bad and that’s what I will be doing, although some people disagree as this order gives away spoilers. I’m quite excited for this mega-binge watch event which is going to take over several weekends to finish. Okay, I am digressing now. Back to the ice cream!

The end result of my experiment was better than expected! The strawberry-lemon flavor shined through and the buttermilk-cream cheese-custard base was luscious. Much of the ice cream was smooth and creamy barring some pockets of ice crystals. Although I still have a long way to go, I can now call myself an ice cream making enthusiast at least. And now I have a quart of ice cream to finish which is a giant endeavor in itself.