White Chocolate Strawberry Ice Cream

Since Easter is now behind us, I have decided to fully shift my attention to "warmer weather" recipes. With that idea in mind, I'm finishing up my string of strawberry posts with two different versions of strawberry ice cream. I don't think the fact that temperatures have been hanging around 90 for most of the last week has anything to do with it :) I am actually not complaining. I love it!

To be completely honest, I this is one of the first ice creams I made earlier in March before our surplus of berries. Nevertheless, it still ranks as one of my husband's favorite ice cream recipes, and it fits right in with the strawberry theme. The recipe for the base ice cream is adapted from David Lebovitz's, A Perfect Scoop, but I ran across the strawberry version here on Gimme Some Oven. In the book, David recommends either topping the ice cream (without the strawberries) with candied cherries or adding them as a mix-in. To me, the cherry idea also sounds awesome, but I also think it would be great with a swirled raspberry ribbon. I will share it if we end up making one of the variations.

As I said earlier, this is my husband's favorite ice cream that I've made to date. I changed up the ratio of milk to cream from the base recipe using 2 cups of whole milk to 1 cup of cream because I was trying to use up some milk that was getting close to it's date, and I thought that it ended up being plenty creamy in the end. One thing I would change in the future is my choice of white chocolate. I have always heard that using chips instead of bar chocolate in recipes that call for it to be melted can result in a "chalky" texture. I have never noticed this before but could definitely tell in this ice cream. Next time, I will be sure to use bar chocolate instead of white chips. My other change would be the strawberries. I wasn't crazy about the chunks of strawberries included in the ice cream because they end up as little frozen chunks after it has set in the freezer for awhile and you lose the flavor they would add. I think they would be great instead as a topping, and I would include them this way in the future. I'll include the recipe as we made it below (but written for bar chocolate), and you can adapt the strawberries as you please. Enjoy!

(Printable Recipe)

White Chocolate Strawberry Ice Cream
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop and Gimme Some Oven

Ingredients:
8 oz white chocolate (finely chopped)
2 cups whole milk
2/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups strawberries, finely diced

Put the pieces of chocolate in a bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top. Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, the scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.  

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as  you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer over the white chocolate. Stir until white chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth, then stir in the cream and vanilla. Stir until cool over an ice bath. 

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator (I usually leave it in overnight), then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions. Add the strawberries about 5 minutes before the ice cream cycle is completed.