Blackberry Ice Cream

When Lawson got his ice cream churn for Christmas, my friend Tammy sent me a recipe for blackberry ice cream that I was just dying to try out. She found it on a food blog, The Pioneer Woman, and the photos and descriptions made the process look so easy (and so yummy). Last night I put the recipe to work.

Preparing the berries was easy enough. I simply heated them with some lemon juice and sugar. Then I pushed them through a mesh strainer to separate the pulp from the seeds, leaving me with a small bowl of blackberry juice I wanted to drink right there.









The recipe is custard based. I'd never made custard before, and I have to say, I had to go back to the blog (especially the photos) a few times to make sure I was following the recipe correctly. Lawson helped me separate the egg yolks and then left it to me to temper them before adding them to the heated half-n-half/sugar mixture.










The hardest part was, as Tom Petty says, the waiting. Custard takes a long time to firm up. But it finally did, and then I had to strain it. I'd never pushed custard through a strainer before. That was interesting. Then I added all the ingredients to 1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream and then poured the mixture into the churn.


















Again, more waiting...












The result? A beautiful lavender ice cream that tasted nothing like blackberries. Maybe I need more berries next time. Or maybe I should have pushed the berries a little harder through the strainer so that I had pectin and juice. I don't know. Maybe Tammy can fill me in (or the Pioneer Woman). The ice cream tastes like custard, though, which is delicious. And it is the creamiest ice cream I have ever put in my mouth. So tonight I'm going to make some brownies to eat with the custard flavored purple concoction. That should be mighty tasty!