This ice cream is another quasi-take on PB&J: an ice cream base infused with star anise and roasted strawberry puree, and swirled through with a black sesame caramel.
Roasting fruit and then pureeing it into ice cream base has become one of my favourite ways of incorporating fruit into ice cream (I have another couple recipe drafts using this technique with apricots and cherries!). It’s a technique I borrowed from Stella Park’s cherry ice cream, where roasting reduces down the fruit and makes up a significant portion of the base. Though, unlike the original recipe, I like to put in full puree instead of straining in because that way I don’t need quite as much fruit and there’s no chance of waste!
Some reasons to love roasting fruit for ice cream: Firstly, it reduces the water content of the fruit, preventing the ice cream base from becoming crystalline. Second, it also makes for a thicker ice cream base which better holds air from churning and fluff up more (this is only a concern when you churn your ice cream by hand). Finally, I think the concentrated fruit mixture also helps keep the ice cream a bit softer at freezer temperature – though whether that’s due to the first two reasons or something about fibre content, I’m not sure!
This ice cream has gone through a few renditions to get here. The first time I made this ice cream, I tried to use swirl straight black sesame paste into the ice cream. But I found that frozen black sesame paste has a pretty terrible texture for ice cream swirling – it stiffened immediately upon contact with the ice cream and spotted the ice cream with grey fragments.
It was later when I was photographing an ice cream with a caramel sauce that I noticed the caramel kept a wonderful, soft, swirly texture even when frozen (yay sugar!). So in my second try, I made a caramel to act as a vehicle for the black sesame paste. Diluting the paste in caramel also let me add plenty of swirls while keeping the black sesame flavour from overwhelming the ice cream base. But I found that the ice cream was a bit too rich and cloying as the roasted strawberries had lost their brightness.
So for the third attempt, I reduced the proportion of cream a bit and added plenty of lemon juice to brighten the strawberry puree – while the roasted strawberries do taste different from fresh, the acidity keeps the ice cream a bit brighter, all the better to contrast against the sweet, salty and nutty black caramel. Finally, if you’re no so into the black sesame, I also quite like the roasted strawberry and star anise ice cream base on it’s own, so skip the caramel if prefer!
strawberry star anise ice cream with black sesame caramel swirl
You’ll only use about half of the caramel. As it makes a fairly small amount of ice cream, if you want to double the recipe, you only need to double the strawberries and ice cream base (there is sufficient caramel for a double recipe).
black sesame caramel swirl
- 55g granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp water
- 70g heavy cream, heated until quite warm
- Two finger pinch worth of kosher salt
- 18g roasted black sesame paste, or to taste
roasted strawberries
- 400g chopped strawberries
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice, or to taste
ice cream base
- 180g heavy cream
- 3 whole star anise
- 120g whole milk
- 20g granulated sugar
- 2 egg yolks
black sesame caramel swirl
Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Heat over medium high to dissolve the sugar, then allow it to bubble away, swirling the pan occasionally, until the sugar caramelizes. Cook to an amber – lighter if you prefer sweeter, and darker if you prefer a bit of bitterness.
Remove from the heat and pour in the hot cream carefully (it will bubble up) and stir to mix. If lumps of hard caramel form, return to the heat and stir until melted. Stir in the salt.
Transfer the caramel to a bowl and stir in the black sesame paste. Set aside to cool completely.
roasted strawberries
Roast at 350F for about 20-25 minutes or until shrunken/reduced, cooked through and the juices have mostly evaporated (after the evaporative losses, I ended up about 180g worth of roasted strawberries.) Transfer to a container (I like to transfer it directly to the cup that comes with the immersion blender as I’ll be blending it eventually) and let cool. Stir in the fresh lemon juice – the strawberries lose their brightness when roasted, and this helps recover it.
ice cream base
Combine the heavy cream and the star anise. Place in the fridge for 24 hours to cold infuse. The next day, fish out the star anise from the cream and set aside.
Get a double boiler ready – set a small saucepan of simmering water on the stovetop and find a glass bowl that fits on top. Whisk together milk, egg yolks and sugar in the bowl. Add the star anise. Place the bowl over the pot of simmering water and stir constantly with a rubber spatula until the temperature reaches about 165F, or thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a line drawn in it.
Pass through a sieve to and ensure no fragments of star anise remain. Transfer to a container, add the infused cream, and chill.
Add the chilled ice cream base the roasted strawberries and puree until smooth, either using an immersion blender (most convenient) or a stand blender/food processor.
Put a pan or a container into the freezer so it will be pre-chilled.
Churn the base in an ice cream maker. Stop while the ice cream base is still fairly soft so you can swirl in the caramel a bit. If the caramel doesn’t drip from a spoon, stir in a bit more cream. Spread half the ice cream into the bottom of the pan and drizzle with some black sesame caramel. Repeat with the remaining ice cream and drizzle with more caramel. You’ll have quite a leftover caramel – save the remainder for serving or other applications.
tentimestea 
Now this is a flavor for the books. Well done. 🍃🍓
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Aww, thank you Gail! It is a fun combination 🙂
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