September was a busy month! I met up with other YEG food bloggers and have been busy trying new things in the Cynful Kitchen.
“Are you sure this is not store-bought ice-cream?” My mother-in-law asked. She said that she couldn’t tast any artificial strawberry flavours in this ice cream; I flavoured it with almond essence to give it a nutty flavour. This recipe was inspired by a raspberry ice-cream recipe from Ice Cream & Ices, by Nancy Arum, printed in 1981. Did you know that natural strawberry ice cream is NOT pink? I had to ransack pink food gel from my cake decorating supplies to make people think that it’s strawberry ice-cream.
In Nancy Arum’s version, she recommended 1 cup raspberries, up to 1 cup of sugar (depending on sweetness of raspberries), 1 tsp lemon juice, and 3 cups half-and-half cream, You can adapt this ice cream recipe to however you want — be it with blueberries or a different instant pudding mix. If you wanted to add liqueur or liquor, add it during the last 3 to 5 minutes of churning.
This is an original Cynful Kitchen recipe.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup strawberries, washed, pat dried and mashed
50g of (Vanilla) Instant Pudding Mix; more if you wanted a thicker consistency
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp almond essence
2 1/2 cups of whipping cream (Or you can use 3 cups of whipping cream)
1/2 cup almond milk
Tiny sprinkles of sea salt (about 1/8 tsp or less)
1 to 2 drops of pink food gel
Strawberry Ice Cream, flavoured with Almond Essence
Steps
1. Make sure you dry your fresh fruits. You don’t want the water content going into your ice cream if you want a really creamy texture. Water would make it into a more sorbet texture. After patting the strawberries dry, remove the tops, mash — then, add pudding mix and sugar.
Step 1: wash and dry your strawberries. Remove the tops after drying. Dry again, with paper towels.
2. You will notice that your strawberry juicy mixture will thicken. Add the salt to the whipping cream. Add strawberry mixture and whipping cream mixture into the pre-chilled ice-cream machine container. 
3. Churn the ice cream according to your ice-cream machine’s manufacturer’s instructions. Pour into an airtight container when finished. (With my ice-cream maker, it takes 30 minutes to churn, in total. Yours may vary.)
Enjoy! It’s the creamiest ice cream I have ever whipped up; the instant pudding mix really helps emulsify the mixture while the high fat content in whipping cream makes the ice-cream very creamy. For the next little while, I will be experimenting with coming up with my own recipes. It helps to read pastry chef textbooks to better understand the science that goes behind baking. Just imagine home-made ice-cream sandwiches, made with love. (Think soft-chewy chocolate cookies, with a nice pink strawberry ice-cream in between) Stay tuned, as I am very behind in my writing.
Cynful Kitchen 