White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Ice Cream

Did you know that this Sunday, July 18th is National Ice Cream Day?  Hooray! 

Now, there are directions all over the internet about how you can make ice cream without an ice cream maker but I felt like it would be too much work or not yield a creamy enough ice cream.  So, if you're lazy and apprehensive like me you have 2 choices: 1) buy pre-made ice cream from a local parlor or grocery store or 2) buy a standalone or attachment ice cream maker.  I recently opted for the second and bought a Kitchen Aid Ice Cream Attachment from Amazon for a meer $24 after I used the free giftcards I received. How timely and appropriate!

I then scoured the internet for the perfect ice cream recipe to use as my first test batch.  Many of the blogs that I follow had lots of great ones and pretty much everybody agreed that the 2 undisputed ice cream recipe books are David Lebowitz's The Perfect Scoop and the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Book.  I thought about buying myself one or both books but then I realized with every other blog posting the recipes for free, why bother?  That's generally how I find most of my recipes anyway is through blogs so why start buying cookbooks now, right?

Back to making my first batch of ice cream.  I decided to be ambitious and chose this White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Ice Cream that Christine from Christine's Cuisine had creatively put together using 3 different Perfect Scoop recipes.  I was drawn to the pretty swirls and I'm a sucker for white chocolate and raspberries.  *drool*. 

I was surprised at how much the ingredients cost.  This is the last time I complain about the cost of store bought ice cream...they have every right to charge that much!  I was also surprised at how many steps were involved.  I had to prep the raspberry sauce (which apparently the liquor is the secret to preventing your fruit from freezing rock hard), heat and thicken the custard, cool the custard, churn the ice cream, melt the chocolate, layer it all together, and then let it mellow and freeze nice and hard in the freezer.  Phew.  To be honest, this ended up being a 2 day project for me....

But in the end, it was worth it.  Symphony of fresh berries, smooth cream, and decadent chocolate.  It melted smoothly in my mouth and cooled me in the sweltering Summer heat.  Churning ice cream at home feels good knowing everything going in is natural...the way ice cream SHOULD be made.  Now, my ice cream didn't swirl as beautifully as Christine's did but it tasted just as bit as good I bet.  To see how it should really look, I suggest you hop on by her blog to see what drew me to make this as my first homemade ice cream batch :).

I've had my ice cream maker about 3 weeks now and I just finished churning my 3rd batch about an hour ago.  Look out in the near future for posts about Blackberry Ice Cream and Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream!

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White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Ice Cream
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Ingredients

white chocolate ice cream

• 8 oz. white chocolate
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2/3 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 5 large egg yolks
• 2 cups heavy cream

raspberry swirl

• 1 1/2 cups of raspberries, fresh or frozen
• 3 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tbsp. vodka

chocolate stracciatella

• 5 oz. bittersweet chocolate

Directions

1. Combine raspberries, sugar and vodka in a bowl and mash with a fork to combine. Refrigerate an hour or overnight before churning the ice cream.
2. Put the white chocolate in a large bowl with a mesh strainer on top.
3. Warm the milk, sugar and salt in a medium saucepan.
4. In a separate medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk into the yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape back into the saucepan.  Stir mixture constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spatula.
5. Pour custard through a strainer over the white chocolate and stir until chocolate completely melts.
6. Chill mixture in the refrigerator then churn according to the manufacturers instructions.
7. Just before the mixture is done churning – melt the bittersweet chocolate in a bowl in the microwave.
8. Into the container you are going to freeze, layer the ice cream, half the raspberry sauce and drizzle half of the melted chocolate on top. Then repeat. Freeze until firm.

Source: Adapted by and as seen on Christine's Cuisine from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz