Blackberry Ice Cream with Chocolate Curls

Few things are better than enjoying homemade ice cream in the summertime. Being a traditionalist at heart, I usually tend to favor vanilla or chocolate, but among the fruit-flavored custards, blackberry is my first choice.

This ice cream turned out really creamy and luscious and I love the natural lavender color it creates. The blackberry flavor isn't over-powering, but adds a nice sweetness to the background. I only used half a pint of berries, but you could use a full pint and some extra sugar for a stronger blackberry flavor.

I like to see bits of the fruit in my ice cream, so I chose to leave more of the whole berries in tact as well as the seeds. You could easily strain out the juice though. I would probably use more than a half pint if you only use the juice.

Chocolate curls are really easy to make. Just place a square of chocolate (I used dark chocolate in this case) in your microwave for a few seconds, just to warm it up. Once it's semi-warm, take a vegetable peeler and drag it along the sides. You'll end up with nice chocolaty curls. I also added a few whole blackberries on the top, just for looks!



Blackberry Ice Cream
makes a little over 1 quart

1/2 pint blackberries
1 1/4 cup sugar, divided
2 large eggs
2 1/4 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup milk (I used 2%)

Place the blackberries in a small bowl and sprinkle with 1/2 cup of sugar. Cover and refrigerate for an hour stirring every so often.

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until they turn a light color. Gradually whisk in the remaining 3/4 cup of sugar and continue mixing until everything is completely blended. Pour in the cream and milk and whisk to combine.

Mash the berries with a fork until they are the desired consistency and add to the cream mixture. (At this point you could just sieve out the juice.)

Transfer the mixture to your ice cream maker and freeze as instructed by the manufacturer's directions.