Back in the day when I was chock full of food allergies, my in-laws gave me an Ice Cream Maker to make my own sorbet. While I don’t use this appliance very often, it is one that I am very grateful to have when I do use it. A couple weeks ago, we busted it out and made some Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream. All of the ice creams I’ve made in the past have involved cooking ingredients first. This one, however, uses cream cheese and requires no cooking (my kind of recipe!) and will definitely be something I try again - with every fruit I can find (next on my try list - MANGO)! Not only was this recipe delicious, it was light and very refreshing and not too sweet. My kids loved it and loved watching the ice cream maker turn liquid into solid ice cream. It made just over a quart of ice cream. I found this recipe on RecipeZaar.
Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream (For Electric Ice Cream Machines)
Ingredients
8 ounces cream cheese (you can use low fat)
1/2 cup sugar (if using sugar or syrup packed frozen berries, omit the sugar in the recipe)
1 tablespoon lemon juice (we used fresh)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (I omitted because we didn’t have it)
3/4 cup fresh pureed strawberries (if using sugar or syrup packed frozen berries, omit the sugar in the recipe)
1 cup half-and-half
Directions: Blend all ingredients in blender until smooth. Chill ingredients for about 1 hour, or until cold. Turn on ice cream machine and set it to chill the freezing/mixing bowl for 5 minutes. Spoon the cooled mixture into the freezing/mixing bowl of machine. Set the freezing timer to the 30 minute maximum setting. Push start button. When timer rings, spoon ice cream into dishes and enjoy.
Note: My ice cream maker doesn’t have any settings, just an on/off button. I put this in and after 30 minutes, it was ready and all but coming out the top of the machine. Also, I did not measure out the blended strawberries first (my bad) and just guesstimated with 2 pounds of strawberries cut up and mixed in with all of the other ingredients.
