Here in Abbotsford we had a crazy mini heat wave for about a week and a half.  When the temperature hit 30 celsius, we knew it was time to break out the ice cream maker!

This heat wave lined up well with the first meeting of the "Not So Ladies' Book Club" (you may remember this silly group from our homemade s'mores posts!  It's a club that went from a ladies' book club, to a club that included lots of boys, and rarely any books).

And since I (Jordyn) had missed my good friend Joel's birthday party a couple weeks ago, I thought I would make it up to him by making raspberry ice cream!  I came up with this recipe for his birthday last year. He had a big ice cream party, and raspberries are his favourite!  It was the perfect reason to make a big batch of ice cream. 

While we do live on a raspberry farm, fresh raspberries are still about a month away.  But we used the next best thing - our own berries which we froze last summer.  They still taste amazing!

As you can tell the berries in the photo above are a little frosty, if ice cream isn't your deal, these berries make a great snack on their own!  Pop a few into your mouth and you are good to go!

Raspberry Ice Cream

Ingredients:

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

4 cups milk (we used 2% you could use 1% or skim, but it won't be as creamy)

5 cups whipping cream

1/4 cup vanilla

4 cups raspberries  (or 1 1/2 cups raspberry purée)

1/2 tsp salt

*Ice and coarse salt - this will be needed for the ice cream maker

Directions:

Raspberry Purée:

1.  Blend all 4 cups of raspberries in a blender.

2.  Strain out all of the seeds.

3.  You should be left with about 1 1/2 cups of raspberry purée.

Ice Cream:

1.  Beat eggs in a large bowl.

2.  Gradually incorporate sugar.

3.  Add the rest of the ingredients (including raspberry purée, but NOT ice or coarse salt) and mix well.

4.  Place mixture in the barrel of your ice cream maker, and follow manufacturer's instructions.  This will include layering ice and salt around the edges of the ice cream maker.  Ours called for about 2 inches of ice, and then 1/2 cup of salt, repeated until the ice reached the top of the maker.  Then we attached the motor, and let it run for about 40 mins.  We added more ice about half way through.  On our machine you know the ice cream is finished when the motor stops running.  Yours may be different!

This ice cream comes out so velvety and smooth!  The first bite is always amazing. (and the second and the third...)

We figured that a raspberry sauce would go perfectly with the raspberry ice cream!  For the sauce we just heated about about 2 cups of frozen raspberries with 1/3 cup of sugar, and when it had simmered for a bit strained all the seeds out.

Other toppings that really complement the raspberry flavour are chocolate sauce/chips and toasted almonds. 

Using the ice cream maker is always fun, and we really want to experiment with different recipes and flavours over summer!  We were thinking Chocolate Peanut Butter, or perhaps Salted Caramel Swirl?

Do we have any volunteers for taste testers? 

♥  jordyn & kelsey