Strawberry Mascarpone Ice Cream

Another blog challenge. This time it’s Kavey over at Kavey Eat’s hosting Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream. The challenge: to make a fruit based ice cream, frozen yogurt, ice lolly … you get the drift.

I don’t make (or eat for that matter) very much ice cream, so I won’t be participating every month. I do love fruity ice creams though, I cannot abide fake fruit flavours. They don’t taste remotely like the actual fruit and goodness knows what chemical nasties they contain.

I went for a simple strawberry mascarpone ice cream. Simple in that you don’t need to use an ice cream maker, though you can if you wish. The ice cream is not custard based which makes it rather perfect for preparing on warm, lazy summer days. Lazy summer day which we see precious few of here in the UK; as I write the rain pours down and it is blowing a gale outside, oh and I’ve got the fire lit. So much for flaming June eh?

The popularity of strawberry ice cream has not waned over the years – it remains one of the most popular, with vanilla racing ahead to win the race.

In fact, the first ice creams eaten in America were made with fresh strawberries and milk. Paul Dickson tells us in his book ‘The Great American Ice Cream Book’ that the first record of it being eaten in the United States was in the 1740s when a guest of Governor William Bladen of Maryland wrote in a letter that he “had dessert no less curious; among the rarities of which it was composed was some fine ice cream which, with the strawberries and milk, eat most deliciously”.

The ice cream is smooth and cheesecake-like because of the mascarpone. It really seems to lend a ‘grown up’ take on this classic flavour. The addition of a splash of my favourite balsamic vinegar really lifts the sweetness of the strawberries. Trust me here. I honestly haven’t taken complete leave of my senses.

I adore summer fruits, especially strawberries, and am filled with joy when they start appearing in my organic fruit box delivery and in my fruit patch of the garden. What, dearest readers, is your favourite fruit and how do you like to eat it?

This really is one of the easiest, quickest recipes for ice cream I have ever made. If you aren’t too keen on strawberries or want to experiment you could use raspberries, tayberries, blackberries, black currents, mango, and the list goes on. Basically this is very adaptable. You can also use fresh or frozen (defrosted) fruits.

A Cooling Classic: Strawberry Mascarpone Ice Cream. Go on, give it a whirl.