There is nothing quite as delicious as creamy, luscious homemade ice cream to serve in summertime when friends are coming over. Though do-it-yourself ice cream does take some time to make every gorgeously velvet mouthful is certainly worth it and you will you know your ice cream is super fresh, made with only the very best ingredients. Roasting the strawberries for this recipe with maple syrup and balsamic vinegar produces the most intensely gorgeous strawberry flavour.
You can make lovely ice cream both with and without an ice cream maker. Below there are instructions for both methods.
It is best to roast the strawberries and make the custard base the day before you are wanting to serve it as then you’ll have plenty of time to thoroughly chill everything before churning the ice cream.

Roasted Strawberry Ice Cream
Ingredients
Roasted Strawberries:
- 500 grams organic strawberries
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp vanilla
Ice Cream:
- 6 organic egg yolks
- 1 cup maple syrup
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 500 ml organic cream
- 300 ml organic full cream milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 230C.
- Hull the strawberries and cut them into halves, or quarters if large. Toss the strawberries with the maple syrup, balsamic vinegar and vanilla in a baking dish.
- Place them into the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 120C. Roast for 45 minutes, stirring once or twice.
- Remove from the oven, scrape the strawberries and juices into a bowl and set aside to cool. Once cool puree the berries in a food processor or blender and then refrigerate.
- While the strawberries are cooking prepare the ice cream custard base. Put the egg yolks, maple syrup and vanilla into a bowl and set the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water.
- Whisk the mixture for a couple of minutes, until very well combined.
- Then gradually, while whisking constantly, add the cream and milk. Continue to cook the ice cream base, stirring constantly, until it has slightly thickened. This will take approximately 10 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and strain the mixture into a bowl through a sieve. Set aside to cool and then refrigerate overnight or for a minimum of 4 hours, until completely chilled.
- Stir the strawberry puree and ice cream base together, and then churn in an ice cream maker following the manufacture's instructions. Place the ice cream into a covered container and freeze for at least 4 hours.
- If you don't have an ice cream making machine you can still make lovely ice cream. Once you've mixed the strawberry puree and ice cream base together pour it into a glass or stainless steel container and freeze for 45 minutes.
- After 45 minutes remove the ice cream from the freezer and, with a hand-held mixer, stick blender or whisk, stir the mixture thoroughly. Return to the freezer and then stir vigorously every 30 minutes for the next 2-3 hours, until the ice cream is frozen. Ice cream made without a machine is best eaten on the day it is made.
- Remove the ice cream from the freezer for approximately 10 minutes to soften a little before scooping.
Optional Ideas:
- To make a dairy-free version instead of cream use coconut cream and instead of milk use coconut milk.
- You can make vanilla ice cream by just leaving out the roasted strawberries.
- Substitute the strawberries with bananas and the balsamic vinegar with butter for lovely roasted banana ice cream.
- In place of strawberries you could use peaches, nectarines or plums. If doing so replace the balsamic vinegar with butter.