It was my daughter's 3rd birthday this week. I asked her what color ice cream she wanted and she said "purple". That conjured up all sorts of possibilities. At the beginning of the year I took my family to San Francisco to relax and visit some friends. We also had a chance to visit some great ice cream parlors -- one of our stops was at Mitchell's Ice Cream, where they had taro ice cream that was a very bright purple color. I was seriously thinking of copying that ice cream; but, I don't think my daughter would have appreciated it. So I played it safe. I combined fresh blueberries and strawberries to make a very purple reduction.
I made this purple ice cream "Philadelphia Style," meaning that it contains no eggs. Usually I make my ice cream with 3-4 eggs and a cup of whole milk along with heavy cream. But this time I just used straight up heavy cream. When making a "Philadelphia Style" ice cream you can expect that the fat content is going to be greater, so when the ice cream melts in your mouth, you're going to taste a lot more cream. To compensate for this, you will need to add more flavor to your ice cream so that you can taste it better.
The blueberry and strawberry reduction works great for this style of ice cream because of the intense flavor that comes through the extra creamy texture. I also served this with some freshly toasted almond slivers and drizzled some of the left over reduction on top of the ice cream to make sure you can taste the fresh blueberries and strawberries that were used.
My daughter had a great birthday. She is my little princess. We will be making our first trip to Disneyland in the coming weeks, where I am sure she will be awe-struck to see the Disney princesses in person.
Purple Princess Ice Cream
1 cup of blueberry-strawberry reduction
3 cups of heavy cream
1 cup of sugar
pinch of salt
For the blueberry-strawberry reduction, I used 1 cup of fresh blueberries and 2 cups of fresh strawberries. I pureed them together, then reduced the mixture over medium heat. When the reduction is nice and thick, remove it from the heat and place in a heat-proof container. Let cool, then refrigerate until you are ready to add it to the cream.
To prepare the ice cream base, heat 1 cup of heavy cream, sugar and salt together. Once the sugar and salt have dissolved, pour the warm cream into a bowl and combine with 2 cups of cold heavy whipping cream. Add 1 cup of the blueberry-strawberry reduction. Chill the ice cream base for 1 hour in the refrigerator. Then follow your ice cream maker instructions.
When I served this purple princess ice cream, I placed it over a slice of sponge cake, drizzled some of the blueberry-strawberry reduction and topped it off with some toasted, slivered almonds.
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