No-churn strawberry ice cream: three main ingredients, no eggs, no stirring every half hour
Whipped cream, sweetened condensed milk and sieved strawberries, plus just a little sugar, lemon and salt. Nothing to churn: the air beaten into the cream does the machine's job, and the sugar in the condensed milk lowers the freezing point far enough that the ice cream stays soft and scoops easily after five minutes on the counter. Six hours and eight portions from one metal loaf tin.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Strawberries 15 min
- Whipping and folding 10 min
- Freezing 360 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneSugar the strawberries
Wash the strawberries before hulling them, dry, hull and halve. Mix with 100 g of the sugar and the lemon juice and leave 15 minutes, until they release their juice and the sugar dissolves.
Ingredients: 500 g strawberries · 120 g sugar · ½ pcs lemon, juice · 400 ml whipping cream (30%) · 200 g sweetened condensed milk · 1 pinch salt
TipSugar stirred into the fruit dissolves in the fruit's own juice. Added later, to cold cream, it would stay granular and you would feel it between your teeth in the finished ice cream.
Fifteen minutes in sugar with lemonBlend and push through a sieve
Blend the strawberries with their juice until smooth, then push the purée through a fine sieve, pressing with a spoon. You should have about 450 ml. The seeds stay in the mesh.
TipA kilo of strawberries carries thousands of seeds, and in cold, smooth ice cream every one of them crunches between the teeth. The sieve is two minutes of work that decides whether the ice cream is velvety.
Through a fine sieve, seeds left behindWhip the cream to soft peaks
Whip the very cold cream in a chilled bowl 2–3 minutes, to soft peaks: lifted, the whisk should leave a tip that folds over and drops. Do not whip it stiff.
TipSoft peaks hold plenty of air while the cream still flows. Whipped too long it turns grainy and heads towards butter, and folding the purée into it knocks out the air you were building.
The tip folds over and dropsFold in the condensed milk and purée
Add the condensed milk, the remaining 20 g sugar, the pinch of salt and the purée to the cream. Fold with a spatula from the bottom up until the mixture is an even pink. Don't use the mixer: it would drive out the air that replaces the machine here.
Ingredients: 500 g strawberries · 120 g sugar · ½ pcs lemon, juice · 400 ml whipping cream (30%) · 200 g sweetened condensed milk · 1 pinch salt
TipThis is the whole science of the recipe. The air whipped into the cream does the churning, the cream's fat coats the ice crystals, and the sugar in the condensed milk lowers the freezing point. That is why the mixture freezes into fine crystals with no stirring every half hour.
Spatula, bottom to top, to an even pinkFreeze for six hours
Pour into a metal loaf tin or tub, level the surface and press cling film onto it. Freeze at least 6 hours, ideally overnight. Metal draws heat away faster than plastic, so the mixture freezes sooner and the crystals have less time to grow.
Film on the surface, six hours in metalServe
Leave the tub on the counter 5 minutes and scoop with a scoop dipped in hot water. Serve with fresh strawberries. In a closed container it keeps 3 weeks in the freezer; the film on the surface protects it from ice crystals and freezer smells.
Ingredients: 150 g strawberries
Five minutes out, scoop dipped in hot water
Before you start
With a machine, on yolks
For a denser, parlour-style texture make a crème anglaise as in the vanilla ice cream (milk, cream, 5 yolks, 130 g sugar, to 82 °C), chill overnight, stir in 300 g of sieved strawberry purée and churn 25 minutes. More work, but the result is smoother and holds its shape longer.
From frozen strawberries
Thaw 500 g frozen strawberries in a bowl and pour off the juice that runs out (usually 80–120 ml) before blending. That excess water becomes large ice crystals; skip this step and the ice cream sets hard.
It froze rock solid
Too little sugar or too little fat. Don't cut the condensed milk and don't swap 30 % cream for a lighter one: both lower the freezing point, and without them the mixture sets into a single block.
