Discover the delightful world of homemade ice cream with Chef John's No-Churn Blackberry Ice Cream recipe. In this video, we guide you through creating this luscious treat without the need for an ice cream maker. Indulge in the smooth, creamy texture and burst of fruity flavors as you follow along with Chef John's easy steps, and elevate your dessert game.
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00:00 Hello, this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com with the best blackberry ice cream!
00:09 That's right, I'm going to show you how to make some amazing blackberry ice cream without
00:13 having to churn it or needing any kind of ice cream maker.
00:16 And while this may not be as popular as blackberry sorbet, it is definitely richer and more decadent.
00:22 And when blackberries are in season, this is without a doubt one of my all-time favorite
00:26 ways to enjoy them.
00:28 So with that, let's go ahead and get started with a pound and a half of the best blackberries
00:32 we can find.
00:33 And I did buy these at the market, which I'm going to use for the ice cream base.
00:37 But at the end of the video, I'm going to show you how to finish this using the old
00:41 blackberry smash.
00:43 And for that, I'm going to use some extra sweet, extra ripe ones I picked on the property.
00:48 But first things first.
00:49 And what we'll do is transfer our berries into a saucepan.
00:52 And then we'll add some white sugar, a little pinch of salt, and then just a little bit
00:57 of fresh lemon juice, or lime if you want.
01:01 They both will work, so you pick.
01:03 I mean you are after all the fairies of what to add to your berries.
01:07 But whether you're an elf or a pixie, I do think we want that little bit of acidity to
01:11 balance the sweetness.
01:13 And that's it.
01:14 We can head to the stove, where we will place this over medium heat.
01:17 And we will give that a stir.
01:19 And we will wait for those berries to start to break down, and for those juices to start
01:22 to bubble.
01:24 And if you need to toss in a tablespoon of water to get it started, go ahead.
01:28 But there's usually a little bit of water attached to the berries from the rinsing,
01:31 so I was fine.
01:33 And then what I like to do as soon as those berries start to break down, is grab a potato
01:36 masher, and we will go around crushing those berries.
01:40 Which eventually would break down just from the heat, but this is just going to help things
01:44 go a little faster.
01:46 And by the way, a lot of recipes say to puree this in a blender first, but I've always felt
01:50 breaking up those seeds and pureeing them into the mixture causes an off flavor, or
01:54 at least a slightly more bitter flavor.
01:57 So I much, much prefer this method.
01:59 And once this is finished, I want to be able to strain out all those seeds whole.
02:03 And then what we need to do here is cook this until it reduces by about half.
02:07 And guessing is fine, but to help us decide, I like to stick a spoon in, to mark the level
02:12 when we start, and then we can use that as a guide for when it's about half.
02:16 Oh, and the heat setting is going to be up to you.
02:19 All right, if you do this on high heat, it will reduce and thicken a lot faster, but
02:24 you will have more splattering.
02:25 And theoretically, you could scorch the bottom, or we could just keep it on medium, which
02:30 will take longer, but with less splattering and no danger of burning it.
02:34 But either way, like I said, we want to reduce this by about half, which by the looks of
02:39 this spoon level, I'm just about there.
02:42 And once we decide that has cooked down enough, we'll remove it from the heat, and we'll pass
02:47 that through a fine mesh strainer, which is going to catch all those seeds and any other
02:52 fibrous bits.
02:53 All right, nobody's ever eaten blackberry ice cream and said, "This is good, but I wish
02:58 it had more fibrous bits."
03:01 So this is a key step.
03:03 And once everything's passed through that will possibly pass through, we will add in
03:07 one can of sweetened condensed milk, which is not to be confused with evaporated milk.
03:12 Okay, be careful, they're right next to each other in this store.
03:16 And we can also at this point add our vanilla extract, the pure and the real.
03:21 And what we'll do is take a whisk and mix that in.
03:24 And besides adding flavor and sweetness, this is also going to help cool down our freshly
03:28 made blackberry syrup, but not quite cool enough.
03:31 Okay, before we can use this wildly colored mixture, we need it to be fully chilled.
03:37 So what we'll do is transfer that into the fridge for at least an hour, or of course,
03:41 if you're in a hurry, you could put that over an ice bath, but either way, make sure that's
03:45 nice and cold before you move on to this next step, which is to pour two cups of heavy cream
03:50 into a chilled bowl, and then either by hand or with a mixer, we will beat this cream until
03:56 it reaches medium stiff peaks.
03:58 And it sounds like weird advice to tell you not to accidentally make butter, but that
04:03 is exactly what I'm going to tell you.
04:05 Okay, if we over whip this cream, it will break and the fat will separate, and you will
04:10 literally end up with butter.
04:12 In fact, to see that, go check out our "How to Make Butter" video.
04:15 But anyway, the point is when our whipped cream looks like this, and it retains its
04:19 shape and will hold a nice sharp mark, we will stop and grab our chilled blackberry
04:24 mixture, and we'll transfer about half of our whipped cream into the bowl, and then
04:28 we'll use a whisk to gently, but not too, too gently mix it in, because all we're doing
04:34 with this first addition of whipped cream is using it to aerate and lighten the blackberry
04:39 mixture so that when we fold in the rest with a spatula, it will hang on to enough of those
04:43 microscopic air bubbles to give our ice cream the perfect post-freeze texture, which by
04:49 the way is the key to a no-churn method, where usually those air bubbles are created while
04:53 it churns, but we are skipping that step.
04:56 So what we'll do, like I said, is use our whisk to mix that in until that cream just
05:01 about disappears, at which point we can transfer in the rest, and then we will switch to our
05:06 spatula, and we will use that to fold it in, by scraping from the bottom and the sides
05:12 up over the top, with the occasional gentle stir, and while we are going to be a little
05:18 more gentle than we were with the whisk, we are still not obsessing about knocking out
05:23 too much air, in fact I think if you're too gentle, I believe that actually dilutes the
05:27 flavor a little bit, since that bite of ice cream once frozen is not going to be as dense
05:32 on the palate, so what I'm trying to say is fold this in fairly gently, but do not stress,
05:39 since really all we're trying to end up with is a nice light, relatively fluffy, but pourable
05:43 batter.
05:45 And then once that's been accomplished, we can transfer that into whatever container we're
05:48 going to freeze it in, which as you can see from its frosty appearance, I definitely keep
05:53 in the freezer until I need it, and what we'll do is transfer that in, and cover it tightly,
05:59 and then of course transfer it into the freezer until it's completely frozen solid, which
06:04 is probably going to take at least 4 hours, but I almost always leave mine overnight,
06:09 and then once it is frozen, we can go ahead and scoop this out and serve it up, but I
06:14 highly recommend this optional step, that we call the old blackberry smash, and that's
06:21 where we take a handful or two of our sweetest, most perfect berries, and then proceed to
06:25 mix and smash them into our ice cream base, and for me this takes the blackberry ice cream
06:30 from something that's great, to something that is mind-blowing, and yes of course you
06:35 can just mix the berries into the ice cream before you freeze it, but I think using the
06:39 old blackberry smash method, you get a much better texture, since the fruit doesn't freeze
06:44 and crystallize, and it also partially melts the ice cream a little bit, and seems to make
06:49 it even more creamy, plus not to mention, it makes everything look so much more gorgeous,
06:55 and that's it, once that optional but mandatory step is done, we can serve this up, and if
07:01 we want, we can garnish with some extra berries, and what I think is the best, blackberry ice
07:06 cream is ready to enjoy, and anyone lucky enough to enjoy this, will have no idea we
07:13 didn't use a machine, since I think the texture is absolutely perfect, plus mixed into that
07:18 perfect creamy texture of the base, we have that juicy, extra sweet, fresh fruit, which
07:24 provides not only a great contrast in mouthfeel, but also in flavor as well, since those bits
07:30 are pure berry, which makes the blackberry flavor of our base, even more blackberry-y,
07:37 blackberry-ish, even more pronounced, and I really should have chilled this dish in
07:41 the freezer first, but I didn't, and it was like 100 degrees in my kitchen, so even though
07:47 I tried to move fast setting up these shots, this ice cream got pretty soft, which is why
07:53 I did a different one, to take pictures for the thumbnail, which reminds me, this style
07:58 of ice cream does melt fairly quickly, so this is not an ice cream you want to let sit
08:02 out, so we want to leave this in the freezer, until everyone has a spoon in their hand,
08:08 but anyway, that's it, when it's summer and blackberries are in season, this should definitely
08:13 be on the what to make list, but if it's not summer, you can still get some frozen blackberries
08:18 at the store, and you will still end up with something fairly fantastic, but whether you
08:23 do that, or use peak of the season fresh berries, either way, I really do hope you give this
08:29 a try soon, so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written
08:35 recipe and much more info as usual, and as always, enjoy!
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