June is Dairy Month, since today is the last day of Dairy Month it is only fitting to share two of my favorite ice cream recipes. This post contains both a churn and no-churn recipe that you can store in your freezer and enjoy for a few weeks this summer (if it lasts that long).
Ag Facts:
Did you know that dairy milk is actually natures original sports drink? Milk contains 13 essential nutrients. You can visit Gonna Need Milk to learn more and compare your sports drink or milk of choice to dairy milk. 9 out 10 olympic athletes grew up drinking milk. Recently Elle Purrier St. Pierre a dairy farmer and mom from Vermont qualified for the Olympic track team for the second time as a middle and long distance runner.
These recipes both call for 2% or whole milk in addition to heavy cream. Whether you drink skim, 1%, 2%, or whole the percentage on the carton indicates that this is the percentage of the entire weight of the milk that is accounted for by fat. For example if you are drinking an glass of 1% milk this indicates that 1% of the weight of the glass is fat and the other 99% is water or other nutrients.
Whole milk typically indicates 3.5% of the milk’s weight is fat, and 96.5% is water and other nutrients.
Skim milk is typically any milk with milk fat weighing .5% or less of its total weight. Leaving 99.5% as water and other nutients.
Heavy cream contains no less that 36% of milk fat.
How much water does a dairy cow drink in a day? Since milk is high in water content, dairy cows will drink on average a bath tub of water each day, equally up to 50 gallons.
Chocolate Strawberry Ice Cream (Churn)
Ingredients:
- 1 cups heavy cream
- 2 cups 2% milk
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 egg yolks
- A pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced strawberries
- 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 cup semi sweet mini chocolat chips
Instructions:
- Prep: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and chop your berries thinly. Lay your berries out on baking sheet with parchment, drizzle the balsamic vinegar over the berries. Place tray with berries in the oven for 20-25 minutes. This step can be done up to 3 days in advance and berries stored in an airtight container in the fridge.
- Mix Ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together the heavy cream, 2% milk, sugars, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, and salt until the sugar is dissolved. I used a hand mixer for 60-90 second to ensure the cocoa powder and sugar were properly mixed in.
- Make Custard: In a medium sized sauce pan on low to medium heat add about 3/4 of your prpeared mixture. Heat for a period of time until mixture is steaming but do not let it boil and continue to stir. Add egg yolks to the remaining 1/4 of the mixture. Slowly pour about a cup of the hot mixture into the bowl containing the egg yolks. Stir the mixture, and pour egg and milk mixture into the sauce pan and reduce the heat to low. Continue to stir. You do not want to scramble the egg yolks. Keep the heat low. You will want the egg yolks to be tempered in the hot custard. Your custard is ready to remove from the heat when the mixture lightly covers the back of a wooden spoon. Tip: If you do accidentally scramble your eggs, prior to step 4 run your mixture through a wire strainer.
- Chill the Mixture: Pour mixture into a heat safe container. Place plastic wrap in the container so that it is touching the top of the custard. Skipping the addition of the plastic wrap will result in a thick skin devloping on your custard. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight for best results.
- Churn the Ice Cream: Pour the chilled mixture into an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. This usually takes about 20-25 minutes. The slower you churn your ice cream the smaller the ice crystals will become, and the creamier your ice cream will be. This is a tricky balance however; over churning or churning at a high rate of speed can give your ice cream the mouth feel of butter. ** NOTE: If using the KitchenAid Ice Cream attachment you will churn until there is a clicking noise. Do not add any stir-ins while the ice cream is churning ths could break your attachment.**
- Freeze: Transfer the soft ice cream to an airtight container freezer safe container, add strawberries and chocolate chips. Freeze for at least 4 hours or until firm.
- Serve: Scoop and enjoy your homemade vanilla ice cream!
Raspberry Cheesecake Ice Cream ( No-churn):
Ingredients:
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1/2 Cup 2% milk
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 4 oz. softened cream cheese
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- A pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup of raspberries
- 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
Instructions:
- Prep: Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and lay raspberries on baking tray with parchment. Drizzle balsamic vinegar over top. Place tray with raspberries and vinegar in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Store in air tight container in the fridge. This step can be completed up to 3 days in advance.
- Mix Ingredients: In a medium bowl, beat 4oz of cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add the heavy cream, 2% milk, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt until soft peaks begin to form. Once soft peaks are forming fold in raspberries and white chocolate.
- Freeze: Transfer the soft ice cream to a freezer safe airtight container. Freeze for at least 4 hours or until firm.
- Serve: Scoop and enjoy! NOTE: Since this recipe is not churned it tends to be harder to scoop and the ice crystals formed during freezing are large however it is very tasty!
Unfortunately, we were too excited to enjoy the chocolate ice cream that we did not take a picture of it scooped before it was gobbled up. I do recommend allowing the ice cream to sit out for about 5 minutes before attempting to scoop it and I also recommend running the scoop under warm water while scooping. Enjoy!!
