Pretty in Pink

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe of Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream was chosen by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity.  The first thing you may have noticed about my version of this dessert is that it's definitely not blue.  Or even purple.  Those who have been reading my blog for a while are probably aware that I don't like blueberries, but that I do love raspberries!

Yes, I did make a few modifications to this week's recipe.  When I first looked at the recipe, I noticed that it makes a fairly small batch.  In fact, I don't think I've put such a small amount of ice cream base in my ice cream maker before.  I should have thought more about that before I started.  Besides substituting raspberries for the blueberries, I also tried using some homemade creme fraiche in place of the sour cream.  Other than that, I stuck pretty closely to the recipe.

One thing I should mention is that the last time I made ice cream (about a week ago), I killed the motor on my ice cream maker.  The ice cream maker had a freezer canister with a plastic lid where the motor fit into the top.  I didn't actually burn out the motor--the plastic cover for the motor attachment broke off, and then some of the bits of the motor fell out.  But when I stopped and thought about it, I realized that it was 15 years old.  So it had a good life.  But I wasn't sure I wanted to spend money on a new ice cream maker right now.  The canister was still perfectly fine, and I remembered that I also had a hand-crank for it.  So I thought I'd try to convince Brianna that it would be fun to help me make the ice cream by hand.  =)

It might have turned out okay.  But the quantity of ice cream was just too small.  It wanted to freeze to the sides of the canister before we really had a chance to churn it.  It quickly became impossible to turn the crank.  So I gave up and scraped shards of ice cream into a container to put in the freezer.  I did try to eat some of it, but it wasn't very good at all.  Poor texture, and not very good flavor either.  Edited to add: Simply substituting the creme fraiche for the sour cream resulted in too much fat, I think.  The ice cream had a really greasy mouthfeel to it.  If I try the creme fraiche again, I'll add some milk as well.

I decided to try again.  First, let me introduce you to my newest kitchen appliance:

Thanks to Pamela for the great information that Williams-Sonoma has this ice cream maker for a good price that included a second freezer canister.  Woohoo!  Multiple ice cream flavors on the same day!  =)

I decided to think positive and came up with proportions for a larger batch.  Here's what I decided on:

1 12-ounce bag of frozen raspberries, thawed

1 cup granulated sugar

juice and zest of 1 lemon

1/8 teaspoon salt

12 ounces heavy cream

8 ounces reduced-fat sour cream (since the creme fraiche didn't work out the way I'd hoped)

I cooked everything but the cream and sour cream together as indicated in the original recipe. I increased the simmer time to 5 minutes due to the larger quantity.  Since I didn't want raspberry seeds in my ice cream, after a spin in the blender I pushed the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer.  I stirred in the cream and sour cream and chilled the mixture for several hours before trying out my new toy.

The verdict?  This stuff is fantastic!  Tart and refreshing as well as very creamy.  Just the thing to beat the August heat (and summer-long heat wave we've been having).  I will definitely be making this one again.  As with most homemade ice cream, it definitely gets a little hard after a day or two in the freezer.  My solution for that is to stick the whole container in the microwave for about a minute on 10% power, just enough to soften it a bit.

Want to try the blueberry version?  Head over to Dolores's blog for the recipe, or check out a copy of Baking From My Home to Yours.