So, being in the southern hemisphere is interesting when it comes to planning seasonal recipes – most of the world’s population will have very different fruits available to them compared to me. This site is hardly bustling, for sure, but it is something that occurs to me, especially as (like all berry-based recipes) this one is best done using fresh, seasonal produce.
Since the internet is sorely lacking good vegan ice cream recipes, I’ve somewhat gotten out of the habit of comparing my recipes to other people’s online. It was only after I’d already gotten somewhat happy with my swirl that I had the realisation that, well, berry swirls are going to be vegan more often than not (at least the sauce component, if not the ice cream itself). At this point I checked other recipes and was somewhat surprised to see how much more sugar I’d settled on compared to otherwise similar recipes. Quite frequently recipes were only adding quite small amounts of sugar, less than a third the amount I was using.
I spent some time thinking about what they’d done to make it not icy before realising that they quite simply hadn’t done anything at all. I then checked to see if Stella Parks had a swirl recipe and was pleased to find out my intuition was correct – she’d actually gone for more sugar than I had! At this point, though, I had settled on a long simmer to help some of the water boil off and break down the berries, and I’m decently happy with the amount of sugar I’m using given the resulting lower water content. The quantities I’m using (which make for quite a swirl-heavy ice cream, by the way!) are based on my own experimentation, but I did take Stella’s suggestion on the aromatics (I prefer rosewater) and her recommendation of vinegar instead of lemon juice for some acidity – I used some raspberry pulp vinegar in my own batch and that was absolutely incredible.
For the ice cream, just prepare any vanilla ice cream recipe of your choice – but I do suggest my own! For the berry swirl I don’t bother with the vanilla component, making it a fior de latte; while a vanilla bean certainly won’t do any harm, I just didn’t think it’d be worth the expense for an already quite flavourful ice cream! The most important thing to remember is that the sauce needs to be cold when you fold it into the ice cream just after removing the ice cream from the churner. Make sure you prepare the sauce before you start the rest of the ice cream so it’s had a good 5-6 hours in the fridge.
Berry Swirl Recipe
Time: 60 minutes (active), 6 hours (total)
Makes: 1.5 Litres
Ingredients
| 150 grams | Sucrose (White sugar) |
| 350 grams | Assorted berries (roughly chopped) |
| 20 grams | Lemon juice (or vinegar!) |
| 5-10 grams | Rosewater |
| 5 grams | Stabiliser, such as xanthan gum |
| 1 batch | Vegan vanilla ice cream |
Directions
- Hull any strawberries you’re using and roughly chop anything bigger than a blueberry, then add them into a pot with a bit of water (maybe 30mls or so) and the sugar, lemon juice/vinegar and salt. Bring to a gentle simmer, and keep it on the heat for about half an hour, or until it’s thickened somewhat.
- Take the berry mixture off the heat, let it cool for a bit, then add in the rosewater. Refrigerate.
- Start preparing the vanilla ice cream as directed. After the ice cream has been churned, layer it into the storage container of your choice with the berry sauce, then give the entire mixture a brief few swirls with a butter knife – the sauce should be distributed through the ice cream, but not incorporated into it. Work quickly here, as even a cooled sauce will melt the ice cream a bit.