Strawberry and peppermint ice cream

  • 200 ml whipping cream (35%)
  • 200 ml milk
  • Half of a vanilla pod
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 50 g Demerara sugar
  • Handful of peppermint leaves
  • 1.5 dl strawberry purée

Put the milk, cream, and vanilla pod in a pan and heat the mixture until it starts to steam (do not let it boil!). Whip the egg yolks with sugar and pour the hot milk and cream mixture carefully into the egg yolk mixture, whisking continuously (at first drizzle it in little by little to allow the egg yolks to warm so that they would not clot). Pour the ice cream mixture back into the pan, add the peppermint, and put it on a stove over low heat for about 10 minutes to allow the taste of peppermint to become more intense. Leave the ice cream mixture with the peppermint leaves in a cool room for 5 hours. Strain the peppermint leaves and vanilla pod out of the peppermint-flavoured ice cream mixture (scrape the seeds back into the mixture) and churn in an ice cream machine. At the same time, use a hand-held mixer to prepare the strawberry purée. Add just 1 tsp of sugar, as both the berries and the ice cream are already sweet. Add the purée into the ice cream when the ice cream is already taking shape in the machine – this way there will be fewer ice crystals in the ice cream. It is recommended to freeze the ice cream for a few hours before serving to avoid it melting too fast.