A MEMBER of the botanical rose group, the red heart shape of the strawberry makes it the fruit of love and romance.
Enjoy these fresh pickings with cream à la Wimbledon, in a cake, syllabub or brule, or even dropped into a luxurious glass of Champagne! Or, with the summer holidays approaching, why not keep the kids amused by helping them make delicious homemade ice cream?
To begin, you need to make an ice cream base before adding any flavours to your mix. For eight people, take 170ml (6 fl oz) milk, 200ml (7¼ fl oz) cream, 1 vanilla pod, split lengthways and scraped, 6 egg yolks and 270g (9½ oz) caster sugar.
Mix the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl with a balloon whisk. Gently heat the milk, cream and vanilla pod in a saucepan. When it begins to boil, pour the milk over the egg mix and whisk. Rinse the saucepan out with cold water before straining the mixture back in through a sieve.
Return to a low heat and cook slowly, stirring constantly until the mix coats the back of the spoon. Be careful, as the mixture can scramble here. Remove from the heat and pour into a bowl. Now you need to cool the mix quickly, we do this by putting the whole bowl into a tray of iced water. Now you have your basic ice cream mix.
Strawberry ice cream is a classic flavour and the addition of fresh strawberries really marks this recipe above the supermarket variety. To serve ten people, take 300g (10½ oz) washed and hulled strawberries, 100g (3½ oz) caster sugar, 125ml (4 ½ fl. oz) stock syrup and 175ml (6¼ fl. oz) cold pouring cream.
Cut the strawberries in half and place in a saucepan. Sprinkle with sugar and leave to soften over a low heat. When they’re done remove from heat and cool fully. In a large bowl, mix the ice cream base with the stock syrup and cold cream. Mix well.