Ingredients:


3 cups finely chopped strawberries

½ cup granulated sugar (adjust as required)

¼ cup honey

1 tbsp lemon juice

¼ tsp salt

500ml milk (3% fat)

3 tsp custard powder/ cornstarch

1 tsp vanilla extract


For the stracciatella:

75gm semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

25gm milk chocolate, chopped

2 tsp oil



Method:


Put the chopped strawberries in a bowl and add the sugar, honey, lemon juice and salt. Mix well and refrigerate this for about 30 minutes.

In the meanwhile, boil the all the milk except half a cup. Once it starts boiling, turn the heat down to medium. To the half cup of cold milk, add the custard powder/ cornstarch and mix well to dissolve it. Add this to the boiling milk and keep stirring till the milk thickens to a custard consistency. Take off the heat and allow to cool to room temperature, while stirring the custard frequently to prevent a skin from forming.

Take the strawberry mixture out and puree it. Add the vanilla extract and the milk custard and blend well. Pour into a plastic or metal bowl, cover it and freeze.

Then follow Angela’s advice to me which follows.

“Pour it into a plastic freezer box , cover the surface with clingfilm, put a lid on and freeze. Thereafter re-mix with a fork every 30 minutes until it reaches the right consistency. The ice cream should be eaten within 3 weeks; before serving, remove it to the main body of the refrigerator for 20 minutes to soften.

When you think the ice-cream has almost reached the right texture, then melt your chocolate & oil together over hot water. Let it cool slightly and then quickly drizzle a little over the surface of the ice-cream. It should set on contact and then you need to quickly stir the chocolate into the ice-cream, breaking up any long strands of chocolate into small pieces. Keep repeating until the chocolate is used up. You may need to pop the ice-cream back in the freezer during this process if it starts to melt.”

It is important to drizzle the chocolate in a thin stream and this can be done using a fork. That would give you the perfect texture. I’m afraid my drizzling technique left a lot to be desired, and I did get a few slightly larger pieces of chocolate in my gelato but we enjoyed it all the same.

This recipe should serve about 6, depending on the size of your servings.