One of my favorite childhood memories is berry picking with my mom and my Grandma, so it is fitting that one of my most memorable desserts {vanilla ice cream with sliced strawberries} was with her. I don’t remember my exact age, but somewhere as an older child/early teen I stayed with my Grandma T for a night and she served vanilla ice cream topped with sliced strawberries. I can picture sitting on her divan in her living room as she walked out of the kitchen carrying a bowl for her and a bowl for me. It was nothing fancy, nothing gourmet, no deconstructed dessert or seven layer torte. Though all of those fancy desserts have a time and a place, the humble vanilla ice cream with u-pick strawberries that she had picked earlier that day was perfection at that moment (and in my mind ever since) quite possibly because of its simplicity. And though the dessert triggered the memory, it is more importantly a moment when my Grandma made me something with love and it is one of the many memories of her that I will cherish. This food-triggered memory has stayed with me for all of these years and it’s one that I simply don’t ever want to forget.
With summer berry season in full swing and a bucket of berries that my boys and I had picked, I decided to {recreate} my memory. I love any type of vanilla ice cream, however, whenever I see little black flecks of vanilla goodness I know that I’m in for a special treat. I used my French Vanilla Ice Cream recipe, scraping the seeds from a whole vanilla bean into the custard as it cooked. I followed David Lebovitz’s advice and also used some vanilla extract to intensify the vanilla flavor. He explained that both types of vanilla impart slightly different flavors so by using both you get an extra rich vanilla flavor. Enjoy your vanilla bean ice cream plain or with your favorite topping. I chose to top mine with the strawberries that we picked to continue my Grandma’s tradition.
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups milk (or half and half)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 whole vanilla bean
- In a large saucepan, beat the eggs, milk and sugar until well blended.
- Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean and stir them into the egg mixture.
- Cook the egg mixture over low heat for roughly 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until thickened. It should smoothly coat the back of a wooden spoon.
- Let the mixture cool.
- Add the heavy cream and the vanilla.
- Stir until blended and refrigerate the mixture until it is completely chilled, for several hours or up to overnight.
- Following the instructions of your ice cream maker, pour the chilled mixture into your machine and stir it until the ice cream forms. It will typically be more like soft-serve when you first make it. If you want firmer ice cream, transfer it to a sealed container once it reaches the soft-serve consistency and let it freeze for several hours until it hardens.
- Recipe makes 1 quart of ice cream.
