For my birthday this past Monday, Red surprised me with David Lebovitz’ The Perfect Scoop! He knew that I have been eying this book for a while. I don’t normally buy cookbooks, unless I know for sure that there are at least several recipes that I can truly make and enjoy over and over again! A little warning for my readers, I had set my eyes on several recipes on his book that I had to make, so there will be several more postings coming up on ice-cream!!

Since we went raspberry picking yesterday morning, I knew that I had to make the raspberry swirl ice-cream from his book… and I think we made the right decision!!

The raspberries off the trees were so sweet and delicate, I ended up with about 2 quarts of freshly picked berries.

Oh, and while we were there, we picked up their fresh farm eggs, and picked up some fresh milk from our local dairy store!

Neither one of us can now go back to commercially made ice-cream after my introduction to fresh homemade ice-cream this summer. Not only that this recipe really highlights the vibrant flavor of the fruits, I thought that it made such a stunning dessert! Bon Appetit!

Adapted from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop!

Ice-Cream
1 cup whole milk
2/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Raspberry Swirl
1 1/2 cups of raspberries, fresh or frozen
3 tbsp of sugar
1 tbsp vodka

Directions
To make the ice cream, warm the milk, sugar and salt in a medium saucepan. Pour the cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.
In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
Stir in 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 and stir it into the cream. Add the vanilla and stir until cool over an ice bath. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator.
An hour or so before churning the ice-cream, make the raspberry swirl by mashing the raspberries together with the sugar and vodka with a fork (if using frozen raspberries, let them thaw a bit first) until they’re juicy but with nice-sized chunks of raspberries remaining. Chill until ready to use.
Freeze the ice-cream custard in your ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. As you remove it from the machine, layer it in the container with spoonfuls of the chilled raspberry swirl mixture.

Yield: 1.5 quarts