Strawberry Ice Cream
I couldn’t look at my mother’s ice cream machine after she died, I actually hid it from view in the pantry. It bought back a lot of memories and some of them were just too painful.
The emotions I attach to objects always take me by surprise. Nowhere is this more apparent to me than in my mother’s kitchen. My mother very rarely threw anything away and so her kitchen is an assortment of kitchenware from all the homes we lived in and also her childhood. She always used the same machines, most notably: her (impossible to use) weighted scales, her trusty Kenwood mixer and her treasured Gaggia Gelatiera. I couldn’t look at my mother’s ice cream machine after she died, I actually hid it from view in the pantry. It bought back a lot of memories and some of them were just too painful.
In 2023 I eyed the ice cream machine carefully, on the lower shelves of the pantry surrounded by baskets, platters and chopping boards. I felt a sudden pang that early retirement was just not something Mum would have wanted for her Gelatiera. I bought it out again and cleaned it, which was more complex than it sounds, as the ice cream bowl isn’t removable and the machine is extremely heavy to lift. Switching it on and hearing the familiar hum of the cooling mechanism to chill the bowl, was immensely soothing. It was the soundtrack of my mother’s kitchen and my early childhood.
For much of the Summer it was humming away making ice cream, I think that is just how Mum would have wanted it. Her two much loved ice cream recipes were Vanilla Ice Cream and Stracciatella Ice Cream (with finely grated dark chocolate added into vanilla ice cream). She never shared these recipes but I must have watched her make them literally hundreds of times. I am actually not really even sure there was a recipe. I think the starting point was almost certainly the recipe from the machine’s manual. I finally located in a box of blender parts with a large label saying Do Not Touch, meant for us all but most particularly my father. She never forgave him for throwing out two boxes of tupperware, long before I was born, and was no doubt fearful other treasured kitchen items could meet the same fate.
My mother would serve vanilla ice cream with almost any pudding you can think of. It was to her staple ingredient, to be replenished as soon as reserves dipped low. As a child growing up in South Africa during the 1950s her favourite past time was to visit the ice cream parlour in Cape Town (which she described as being shaped like a dog, I never quite understood whether this meant the store front or shop sign) and order ice cream, or a traditional cream tea. This delight for ice cream never left her and any child visiting our house would be plied with ice cream, as a sign of welcome and her love. She believed ice cream should be eaten from a sundae glass with a miniature spoon. After she died rows of ice cream sundae glasses were found not only in the kitchen but also stacked in the basement, leaving me with a sad sense that she should have really founded her own ice cream shop, it would have been truly magical.
I believe I have now managed to master her vanilla ice cream recipe, but it took many months to do so. And since then I have wanted to start explore some new recipes. After a hot June this year all the strawberries arrived at once in her garden and this Strawberry Ice Cream was the result. I made it in Mum’s Gelatiera because of the happiness that the hum of that little but mighty machine now gives me too.
Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream
equipment
ice cream machine
hand blender
ingredients
550g ripe strawberries, tops removed
200g caster sugar
300 ml double cream
1 lemon, juice only
method
Turn the ice cream machine on and follow the instructions to cool the ice cream bowl. Ready to make ice cream.
Wash and prep the strawberries, removing the green stalks. Place in a large bowl and puree with a hand blender until smooth. Combine the strawberry puree with caster sugar, double cream and lemon juice.
Pour into the ice cream machine and switch it on, to churn the ice cream. In about 20 minutes (depending on your macine) you should have a soft churn ice cream. Decant into ice cream tubs and freeze for a minimum of 6 hours.