Homemade peach ice cream

Get ready for an ice cream party, because when this peach ice cream comes out of the ice cream maker, you need to eat it NOW. It's best when it's fresh! David Lebovitz agrees with me. I've been reading his blog for awhile now--it's about food, often dessert, and also Paris. And he's the author of The Perfect Scoop, a great ice cream recipe book that I got to go with our new ice cream maker.


The first thing I learned from The Perfect Scoop is that "Philly-style" ice cream is made without eggs--as opposed to the custard style that takes 4-5 egg yolks per recipe. I was immediately interested in Philly style recipes because eggs are expensive. Also, I hate having to find uses for egg whites (angel food cake is too decadent, egg-white omelettes are too Nicole Kidman). Then, by sheer coincidence, the New York Times published the article "Egg-Free Ice Cream Lets Flavors Bloom," with recipes included. Our very own David Lebovitz is quoted as saying that fruit ice creams in particular are better egg-free, because the custard flavor can mask the fresh taste of the fruit. (On the other hand, eggs seems to help with consistency. An egg-free ice cream is more likely to become rock hard when kept in the freezer for more than a few hours. One solution is to add more sugar--or to add booze. 3/4 of these New York Times recipes do the latter. Or use my approach: just eat the stuff as quickly as possible so there are no leftovers.)

We've made peach ice cream twice now cuz it's peach season. We're using the Perfect Scoop recipe, which contains sour cream and lemon juice. It also calls for cooking the peaches beforehand (just a simple 10 minute simmer). This would not have occurred to me, but the resulting ice cream is definitely delicious. The second time I also added a dash of almond extract because that's what my mom always did back in the day when preparing peach ice cream for our old salt-&-ice crank ice cream maker. After all, I was trying to mainline one of the summer tastes of my childhood.

Notes:

The recipe requires blending the ingredients after the peaches have cooled. The first time we used the food processor with good results. The issue is controlling the texture of the peach bits. The ice cream shown at the top of this post was made this way--not huge chunks, but definitely discernible peach pieces. The second time I decided to use the blender, below. My problem was that the sour cream was at the top and the peaches at the bottom, so by the time the dairy ingredients got sucked into the mix, the peaches were already finely pureed. It had made a peach slurry before I knew it--took just a few seconds. The resulting ice cream was still delicious, but was just peach-coloured rather than looking peach-laden.



Next ice cream up? Vanilla.