Recipe: Strawberries & Cream Gelato

If you pick up any store bought variety of ice cream, it’s likely laden with calories, sugar, fat, and a list of artificial ingredients used to preserve, color, and flavor it. But ice cream is actually quite a simple dish.  You can start with milk, cream and sugar, flavor it with your favorite fruit, veggies, or nuts, and the result will be something so rich and creamy, you’ll never buy store-bought ice cream again!

After picking up a couple of pints of strawberries over the weekend, I began dreaming up the perfect recipe.  My husband said it should be simple, but of course, I wanted elaborate and gourmet. We settled on a Strawberries and Cream Gelato! But why gelato?  And what is the difference between ice cream and gelato? Serious Eats has a great article which explains the differences, however, to simplify it, Gelato is made with less fat and less air during the churning process and served at a warmer temperature.

So, once I learned that gelato is made with a greater proportion of whole milk to cream, I began experimenting with the recipe.  I frequently create a reduction out of fresh or frozen strawberries for my kids (we use it on pancakes and waffles in place of syrup), so I thought I could incorporate this concept into my gelato recipe.

Here is my recipe for Strawberries and Cream Gelato:

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Strawberries & Cream Gelato

Ingredients

• 1 Pint of Strawberries sliced
• 1/8 Cup Orange Juice
• 1/4 Cup Water
• 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
• Whole Milk see directions below
• 3/4 cup sugar see directions below, divided

Instructions

1. Create a strawberry reduction by boiling 1 cup strawberries, orange juice, water, and 1/8 cup sugar until thickened
2. In a food processor, combine remaining strawberries with remaining sugar
3. Strain strawberry reduction (reserve the liquid) and process
4. Add enough whole milk to the reserved liquid to equal 3/4 cup
5. Process until smooth
6. Whip cream and fold into the mixture
7. Pour mixture into ice cream maker and freeze
8. Top with fresh strawberries and serve immediately

This is a rich, creamy gelato with an incredible strawberry flavor. It’s lighter than your traditional ice cream and best served immediately. If you do freeze it, you’ll want to let it sit out a few minutes before enjoying it.

A few things to note:

You can adjust the amount of sugar in the recipe, based on the sweetness of your strawberries

You can opt to simply use milk in place of the liquid reserved from the strawberry reduction which will result in an even creamier gelato

You can add fresh strawberries into the gelato mixture during the last 5 minutes of freezing, however, when you freeze it overnight, the strawberries will be quite frozen

Have you ever made ice cream, sorbet, or gelato at home? I’d love to hear about your favorite recipes.

Recipe & Images: Rockin’ Mama. 

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Caryn Bailey

Caryn is a NICU nurse by day, blogger by night and mom 24/7. She savors the warm Southern California sun and loves to travel, shopping, baking, reading and frequenting her local tea room. Caryn created the column Lavishly Green for Peekaboo Picks Magazine to share her best tips for going green in style, she is the Former editor for Family Review Network, former OC Family Magazine online contributor, former Orange County Moms Blog contributor, former Evenflo Savvy Parent contributor, former member of the Totsy Advisory Board and former freelance writer for CBS Los Angeles.

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