Though I am a recovering picky-eater now, I never liked strawberry ice cream growing up. There were always chunks of strawberry I would have to pick around. Things that were smooth and uniform made be feel safe. (I don’t have the column inches to unpack that.) In fact, strawberry was never an ice cream choice I would have made for myself until I was maybe 25, when I ducked into a gourmet ice cream shop in the heat of summer in Fishtown, Philly with my good friend Kat. She spotted Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream on the menu, which sounded intriguing to me. Buttermilk in ice cream… wait, what? Kat has never steered me wrong, so I got one too. The following is a result of many experimental attempts to recreate that night, and I think I made it even better. Tastes best on a sugar cone. -C

Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. fresh strawberries, stems removed
1/2 cup granulated sugar plus 1 and 1/2 T. reserved
1 T. lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup buttermilk
2 egg yolks
1 t. vanilla
1/4 cup strawberry jam (such as Bonne Maman)

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven while preparing the strawberries. Toss the strawberries, the 1 and 1/2 T. of sugar, and lemon juice together in a baking pan until mixed. Bake in a 300 degree F oven for 30 min. Allow to cool and stir in the strawberry jam in with the roasted strawberries, mashing as many as you prefer in the process. Refrigerate until ready for step 5.
2. In a medium saucepan on medium heat, bring the heavy cream to 170 degrees F. Whisk the cream so that it does not scorch on the bottom of the pan while heating. The cream will begin to simmer.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolk and remaining sugar together. Use a ladle to pour about a 1/2 cup of the hot cream into the egg yolk-sugar mixture. Stir.
4. Pour the entire mixture back into the saucepan of hot cream and whisk for another 2 min. until slightly thickened and sugar is dissolved.
5. Turn off the heat and pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a large glass measuring bowl. (This will get rid of any egg yolk lumps.) Stir in the buttermilk and vanilla. Add the strawberry mixture into the buttermilk ice cream base and stir again until well mixed. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.
6. Churn the ice cream base in an ice cream machine until very thick, about 20 min. Swirl in the strawberry jam while smoothing ice cream into an airtight container to freeze four or more hours.

Notes:
Yields one quart of ice cream. Make sure to start the fresh strawberry mixture well ahead of starting the ice cream base. You want the sugar to dissolve and plenty of strawberry juices to release. (The longer it sits, the sweeter it will make the ice cream.)
For this recipe it is important to mis en place your ingredients, measuring and prepping before starting to cook on the stove. Get all of your equipment together and set up as well. You don’t want to be trying to whisk while trying to find your thermometer in your gadget drawer.
Allow the ice cream base to chill in the refrigerator as long as possible; the longer it chills, the shorter the churn time in the ice cream machine it will take. You can definitely double this recipe, but you would need to churn it in two batches in a standard home ice cream maker.

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