Strawberry Rhubarb Ice Cream
I don’t know if you know, but ice cream is my jam. My desert island food. I used the heat of the last couple days as an excuse to make a batch – strawberry-rhubarb, since the best part about the pie is the ice cream pairing. You can skip the pastry and the baking and get the job done all in one go. Also – there’s something about pure pink ice cream that digs deep into the best part of your childhood. It reminds me of digging the thick stripes of strawberry and chocolate out of the tub of neapolitan.
I sometimes roast strawberries and rhubarb for ice cream, but that would require turning on the oven, and it hit 31 degrees at dinnertime last night. You can use fresh, uncooked strawberries, lightly mashed, but I find those combined with heat and sugar become the best form of themselves, and are easier to distribute throughout the cream. Bonus: it’s easy to simmer some rhubarb alongside.
It takes about ten minutes on the stovetop to break down the fruit and sugar – the only part that will slow you down is the chilling – you want everything to be nice and cold when it goes into your ice cream machine – but you can speed it up by tucking it into the freezer.
(I sometimes put my cream in the freezer too, to get it extra-cold, even slushy – it makes for a bit of a head start.)
Now – custard or no custard? If you like the egg-based custard kind of ice cream (which is delicious), you could add the chilled, jammy fruit to that, but generally I’m impatient when I make ice cream – I want it now, or soonish – and so rarely bother to make custard on the stovetop which then must be chilled. My fallback formula is a cup of heavy cream and a cup of half and half, which happens to work perfectly with the simmered fruit, which can lie in wait in the fridge for up to a week.
Pink ice cream! Put all that you don’t eat straight from the machine into a container and freeze for a bit to make it more scoopable.
I think we can go ahead and officially declare it summer.
Strawberry Rhubarb Ice Cream
AuthorJulieTrim the berries and chop the rhubarb (it can be any ratio - I used just under a pound of berries and a couple small stalks of rhubarb) and put it into a medium saucepan with the sugar, lemon juice and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook, mashing the mixture occasionally with a potato masher or fork, until the fruit breaks down and it gets jammy. Scrape into a bowl and refrigerate until well chilled.
Make sure all your ingredients are cold, and stir together the fruit and creams in a bowl. Freeze in an ice cream machine until it turns into ice cream. Makes about 1 L.
Ingredients
Directions
Trim the berries and chop the rhubarb (it can be any ratio - I used just under a pound of berries and a couple small stalks of rhubarb) and put it into a medium saucepan with the sugar, lemon juice and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook, mashing the mixture occasionally with a potato masher or fork, until the fruit breaks down and it gets jammy. Scrape into a bowl and refrigerate until well chilled.
Make sure all your ingredients are cold, and stir together the fruit and creams in a bowl. Freeze in an ice cream machine until it turns into ice cream. Makes about 1 L.
This year it seems we have a bumper crop of just wonderful rhubarb. Thank you for all the great ideas to use it up so it just doesnt languish in the freezer.
Happy to help! 🙂
This recipe is so simple I love it! And the photos are gorgeous. Do you have recommendations for ice cream machines?
I have a Cuisinart.. it’s about 15 years old, and I love it… I haven’t tried many other brands (I’ve never tried the KitchenAid attachment) – sorry, that’s not much help!
Lovely recipe… and now I want to try it. And for Alexandra, I have a friend who makes ice cream regularly using the KitchenAid attachment and it works like a charm too. I’ve been tempted to buy one for myself (who doesn’t want more attachments for one’s stand mixer?) and this recipe might just do it. Now… to find good fresh strawberries…
I need this right now! It is really hot here in Glasgow too! The pairing of strawberry and rhubarb sounds delightfully tart and sweet 😀 x
Hot in Glasgow! Wow.. I so want to visit someday!
i seem to have a lot of juice in the strawberry-rhubarb combo.
will cooking it a bit longer cook off the juice? I love rhubarb!
I love strawberry rhubarb pie, but not the crust. I tried a strawberry rhubarb jam and that was a good fix. Now I’m going to have to add this to my summer bucket list. This ice cream is such a wonderful simple idea, and one that can instantly transport you to summer no matter the weather. Thank you!