No-churn strawberry ice cream

Παγωτό φράουλα χωρίς παγωτομηχανή

Published originally on my blog on 12 June 2014

I like what I like and sometimes it’s very difficult for anyone to change my mind. I guess I’m what you’d call, stubborn.
I’m like that with food too. I am open to experiment with everything and anything but sometimes I just have a hunch I’m not going to like something, for example ice cream made with sweetened condensed milk. I thought it would be horrible, I was imagining cloying sweetness, nasty aftertaste and terrible texture. I was wrong. I made this type of ice cream only to realize it’s not as bad as I had imagined. It is actually pretty great.

I made this pastel pink-colored strawberry ice cream a few days ago when it has gotten unbearably hot here and we needed something to cool us off, quickly. I had all the ingredients at hand and it only took ten to fifteen minutes to make and a little over three hours to freeze. The same evening we enjoyed it and we felt refreshed from the heat.

The texture was amazing; rich, smooth and velvety, and the flavor not as sweet as I was expecting as it was balanced by the addition of freshly squeezed lemon juice. What bothered me in the resulting ice cream mixture was the intense milky flavor and aroma, so in order to compensate for that, I added some strawberry liqueur. Once frozen, the milkiness had mellowed, ending up being quite pleasant and not at all intrusive.

What I particularly like about this ice cream is the fact that it is creamy and rich even though it is not churned. No ice crystals are formed due to the fact that it contains only a small amount of water, thus making the ice cream smooth and velvety. Gotta love that.
Truth be told, I’m still partial to the classic ice cream base and method, and I don’t plan on putting away my ice cream maker, but hey, this one’s made me change my opinion about its kind.

No-churn strawberry ice cream

I didn’t remove the seeds from the strawberry purée as I enjoy them in the ice cream. If you don’t, pass the strawberry purée through a fine sieve to get rid of them.

As mentioned above, I added strawberry liqueur to the mixture to add an extra layer of strawberry flavor and to take away the milky flavor from the ice cream. You can use vanilla extract instead.