Fresh Apricot Ice Cream and Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

Now that it's summer and there is easy access to fresh fruit, I am taking advantage of being able to put my copy of The Perfect Scoop to good use, especially to make ice creams that are slightly less standard and are harder to find in the freezer section of the supermarket. I had already experimented successfully with roasted banana and strawberry-sour cream ice creams, and now that one of my favorite fruits, apricot, is available for a reasonable price at the local Whole Foods, it was time to try out the fresh apricot ice cream recipe that I'd had my eye on since I first got the book and ice cream maker for my birthday in February. I was going to also make vanilla frozen yogurt, since it's almost embarrassingly easy to make and tastes really good, but decided at the last moment to make it a little bit more complicated and make strawberry frozen yogurt instead.

My verdict was that the fresh apricot ice cream was an unquestionable success, but that I preferred the strawberry-sour cream ice cream to the strawberry frozen yogurt, which was too sweet for my taste (next time I'll consider reducing the sugar amount to half a cup). Mihai, however, liked both just fine.


(Fresh apricot ice cream in the making - at this point, Mihai asked if we could just eat that. It was tempting, but I am glad we waited to eat the actual ice cream.)

Fresh Apricot Ice Cream
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop

1 lb ripe fresh apricots (10-16, depending on size - definitely no more than 10 if they are on the large side)
½ cup water
½ cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
a few drops freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Slice open the apricots and remove the pits, then cut each apricot into sixths.

2. Cook the apricot pieces with the water in a covered saucepan over medium heat until tender, about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar until dissolved. Let cool to room temperature.

3. Once cool, purée the apricots and their liquid in a blender or food processor until smooth. Stir in the cream and lemon juice.

4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, and then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Strawberry Frozen Yogurt
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop

1 lb fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled
⅔ cup sugar
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Slice the strawberries into small pieces. Toss in a bowl with the sugar, stirring until the sugar begins to dissolve. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

2. Purée the strawberries and their liquid with the yogurt and lemon juice in a blender or food processor until smooth.

3. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, and then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

The Tale of Two Ice Cream Sandwiches

For my birthday this year, I got an ice cream maker and a copy of David Lebovitz's great book, The Perfect Scoop. Because my birthday is in the dead of winter and it's pretty cold here in Boston during the winter (and throughout much of the spring), I haven't yet gotten a chance to take full advantage of these two presents, but I am beginning to. Recently, I didn't just make ice cream - I made ice cream sandwiches.

My first attempt at this was inspired by the Fanny of foodbeam. Her brownie-like cookies with banana ice cream looked delicious, and I even found a recipe for Roasted Banana Ice Cream in The Perfect Scoop. But, unfortunately, while the ice cream was delicious, my cookies didn't look nearly as pretty as Fanny's, and the overall ice cream sandwich had a cookie-to-ice-cream ratio that was too high for our taste:



Luckily, Smitten Kitchen can always be counted on, and Deb had recently posted a recipe for chocolate wafers that looked like they would be sufficiently thin for our ice cream sandwiches. At this point, I didn't have enough Roasted Banana Ice Cream left for a second decently-sized batch of sandwiches, so I had to go back to David's book to get the recipe for Strawberry-Sour Cream Ice Cream. This time, the sandwiches were much more to my liking - the cookie no longer overpowered the ice cream but added a nice chocolatey crunch:



As for the ice creams - I liked both very much but preferred the strawberry one because it was more tangy (while the banana one was sweeter).

Strawberry-Sour Cream Ice Cream
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop

1 lb fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled
¾ cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
1 cup heavy cream
½ teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice (I may have added more)

1. Slice the strawberries and toss them in a bowl with the sugar until the sugar begins to dissolve. Let stand at room temperature for at least an hour, stirring from time to time.

2. Pulse the strawberries and their sugary liquid with the sour cream, heavy cream, and lemon juice in a blender until almost smooth but still chunky. (After two presses of the button of our blender, there weren't very many chunks left, which was too bad because I would have liked bigger pieces of strawberries in the ice cream).

3. Refrigerate for 1 hour, and then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.



Roasted Banana Ice Cream
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop

3 medium-sized ripe bananas, peeled
⅓ cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
1½ cups whole milk
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ teaspoon coarse salt

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F.

2. Slice the bananas into ½-inch pieces and toss them with the brown sugar and butter in a baking dish. Bake for 40 minutes, stirring once during the baking, until the bananas are browned and cooked through.

3. Scrape the bananas and the thick syrup in the baking dish into a blender. Add the rest of the ingredients and purée until smooth.

4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, and then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.