Strawberry Gelato

I made gelato and it was good, really good. This recipe comes out of Gina DePalma’s cookbook Dolce Italiano. It’s a cookbook filled with amazing, Italian desserts. Gina was the pastry chef at Mario Batali’s restaurant, Babo, not a great endorsement considering the allegations against Batali, but the recipes are hers and are amazing. My kids loved making this with me and I think we will make some more tomorrow. Woot, woot! Quarantine 15!

Strawberry Gelato

Creamy and custardy homemade ice cream is easy and so rewarding. Using wholesome and fresh ingredients, like ripe strawberries, makes it worth the extra effort.

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Course Dessert

Cuisine American, Italian

Equipment

• Heavy-bottomed pot
• whisk
• fine-mesh strainer
• Ice-cream maker

Ingredients

  

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup granulated sugar divided
• ½ vanilla bean (or 1 ½ tsp pure vanilla extract)
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1 lb sliced strawberries

Instructions

 

• In a heavy-bottomed pot and under medium heat, combine heavy cream, whole milk, ½ cup of sugar, and vanilla. When the mixture comes to a boil, remove the pan from the heat.
• Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks and 1 TBSP of sugar. Add a splash of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolks and whisk vigorously and constantly. This will temper your mixture and prevent it from turning into scrambled eggs. Slowly whisk in the remaining liquid. 
• Once all liquid is combined with the eggs, pour it back into the pot and stir it over medium heat for another minute.
• Using a fine-mesh strainer, strain the custard into a bowl (this will prevent any little egg-bits from passing through) and refrigerate until custard is completely cold.
• Slice the strawberries. Put them in a food processor along with 3 TBSP of sugar and pulse until you achieve a chunky puree. Do not over-process.
• Stir strawberry puree into the cooled custard and combine well. Follow the instructions of your ice cream maker and freeze.

Notes

This gelato turned-out creamy and silky with no ice crystals. When storing any type of ice cream, I always lay a piece of plastic wrap directly over the ice cream, and then I put the lid on. This seems to help prevent ice crystals from forming.

This gelato turned-out creamy and silky with no ice crystals. When storing any type of ice cream, I always lay a piece of plastic wrap directly over the ice cream, and then I put the lid on. This seems to help prevent ice crystals from forming.

 I wanted to buy an ice cream maker that worked well but was inexpensive. I found one on Amazon that had good reviews. It’s old-school because you need to add ice and salt to the outer bucket where other machines use a coolant.

 

The Pros: 

1. It was affordable.
2. The canister makes 4 quarts of ice cream vs. 2 quarts that other inexpensive makers make.
3. The canister comes with a lid and doubles as a storage container for your ice cream.
4. Only the canister needs to be frozen in preparation for ice cream making and doesn’t take up as much freezer space as other ice cream makers.
5. Ice and salt are cheap and allows you to control how cold you want to make your ice cream as it churns.

 

Cons:

1. Ice and salt need to be added to the outer-bucket each time you want to make ice cream. I used a small bag of crushed ice and 2-3 cups of kosher salt. I gave my son a rolling pin to bang the crap out of the bag of ice to crush it and he loved adding the salt and ice as we made it. If I made ice cream every day this might get old.