Creamy, delicious custard ice cream flavored with fresh strawberries. This homemade Strawberry Custard Ice Cream will be one of the best strawberry ice creams you ever eat!
Homemade Ice Cream
Growing up, my family frequently made homemade ice cream in the summer. We had a large ice cream maker that required a lot of ice, so we’d put it out in the driveway. I remember running outside over and over again while it was churning to see if it was ready to eat.
My parents both liked banana ice cream, so that was the most common flavor we made. But me, I loved vanilla or berry flavored versions of our homemade ice cream.
Strawberry Ice Cream
A couple of weeks ago my son asked my me if we could make ice cream. I hadn’t made it in a year or so, and remembered how excited I was to make it as a kid, so got really excited about his idea. I asked my son what flavor he wanted, and he choose strawberry. That was a double win. I got to make ice cream with my kids, and have one of my favorite flavors!
I used my family’s homemade ice cream recipe as a starting point for this recipe. However, my family didn’t traditionally use eggs. This time I wanted the ice cream to be creamy like custard, so I used eggs to make a custard base.
Getting the strawberries correct for the recipe took a couple of tries. I wanted the taste of fresh strawberries without having hard, frozen chunks. And, I wanted the ice cream to be sweet but not lose the tang of the strawberries. I ended up using a pint of strawberries that I boiled for just a few minutes with 2 tablespoons of sugar. Then, I used an immersion blender to turn it into puree. Perfection.
Strawberry Custard Ice Cream
My son and I did not mind working to get this recipe correct, because it was delicious every single time. I took a container of the ice cream to some friends last week. My friend Kelly texted last night and said, “post that your friend Kelly just had to add a boot camp to her week because she polished off a bowl of your ice cream at 9pm, in bed, while watching the Rock in the new Baywatch.” So, there you go. It’s really tasty.
Here are a few tips for success with this Strawberry Custard Ice Cream:
- If you do not have an immersion blender, you can transfer the strawberries to a traditional blender.
- The 160 degree temperature for cooking is for safety. If you do not let the eggs reach that temperature, your ice cream will still set but you risk having undercooked or raw egg in the final product.
- If you like chunks of cold strawberries in your ice cream, you do not have to use an immersion blender. You can simply use your spoon to break up the strawberries into bite-sized chunks.
Strawberry Custard Ice Cream
Ingredients
- ¾ cup whipping cream
- ¾ cup half & half
- 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 16 ounces fresh strawberries
- 2 tbsp sugar
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together egg yolks.
- In a sauce pan over medium-low heat, bring whipping cream, half & half, and sweetened condensed milk to a simmer. Let simmer for 5 minutes.
- Very slowly, whisk ½ cup of heated milk into eggs. Then, very slowly, while constantly whisking, pour eggs back into pot on stove.
- Whisk vanilla extract and salt into pot. Let simmer, whisking very frequently, until mixture reaches 160 degrees. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
- While milk mixture is cooling, cut tops of strawberries and coarsely cut strawberries into chunks.
- In a small sauce pan over medium heat, stir together strawberry chunks and sugar. Let sugar melt and bring mixture to a gentle simmer. Allow mixture to simmer, while stirring frequently, for 5 minutes.
- Remove strawberries from heat. Use an immersion blender or stand blender to blend strawberries to desired consistency. NOTE: I prefer ice cream to be smooth without chunks, so I puree the strawberries. If you prefer chunks, consider pureeing half of the mixtures and leaving the rest as chunks.
- After the milk mixture (custarhas cooled to room temperature, mix together with strawberries and transfer to ice cream maker. Churn according to your ice cream maker directions (for my ice cream maker, this was 30 minutes).
Disclaimer: All nutritional information provided on this website is an estimate only and is not guaranteed.
If you enjoyed this Strawberry Custard Ice Cream, you might also enjoy these other SugarSpiceLife recipes:
Strawberry Lemon Cake
Easy Homemade Ice Cream
Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake
Mini Fruit Pizzas
Berry Smoothie
Links to items used to make this recipe:
Just want to clarify the 1/2 & 1/2 and heavy cream measurements, is it 3/4 cup total of each or 1 1/2 cups of each? The 1/2 & 1/2 and heavy cream are listed twice so I am slightly confused. Thank you!
It’s 3/4 cup of each. I’m so sorry for that typo, I just fixed it now! Hope you enjoy!!
Thank you so much for the clarification, making this weekend for a birthday dinner!
We loved the custard base on this and would like to try it with different flavors. Do you have any recommendations for turning it into chocolate frozen custard?
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I have not made it chocolate before, but if I was going to, instead of the strawberries and 2 tbsp of sugar, I’d try something like 3 tbsp of dark cocoa powder with 3 tbsp of sugar. Or, I would whisk ~4 ounces of dark chocolate chips into the heated milk/eggs, until it was smooth. If you give it a try, let me know!