Roasted Strawberry Meringue Ice Cream

Virginia, author of Sweet&Sour , surprises us today with a strawberry ice cream with a very intense taste, thanks to the fact that it incorporates roasted strawberries. In addition, the ice cream is accompanied by meringue, so this appetizing soft drink becomes a treat that you cannot miss. Go for the recipe!

We are in the best time to enjoy strawberries and what better way to do it than transformed into a fresh dessert. A glass of strawberry ice cream for those moments when the sun begins to rise. But watch out! It won't be just any strawberry ice cream, since the roasted strawberries will give it a much more intense flavor. I assure you that if you dare to try it, you will not return to the traditional strawberry ice cream.

But if the ice cream itself was not enough, we are going to accompany it with a bed of semi-whipped cream with meringue rocks that will give it a cruchy touch and to which we will also add a handful of roasted strawberries. Pure lust.

Roasting strawberries is easier than it might seem at first glance, because the delicacy of this fruit doesn't prevent it from being baked and obtaining spectacular results. You just have to clean, chop and coat with sugar and a few drops of lemon juice. The heat extracts the juices from the strawberries and caramelizes the sugars, turning this mixture into a kind of dense syrup with an intense flavor, with strawberries that melt in your mouth.

We will prepare the ice cream with the crushed roasted strawberries and a base cream of yolks and cream, or if you prefer to sacrifice a bit of creaminess for the line, with a mixture of 50% milk and cream. And we will use the refrigerator of our Kitchen Aid , which now that the good weather begins at home becomes a regular for desserts, because in 20 minutes we have a creamy ice cream almost ready.
Let's go with the recipe!

INGREDIENTS (for just over 1 liter of ice cream)

For the roasted strawberries:

1 kilo of strawberries clean, chopped and without stem (ripe but firm)
100 gr. of sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice

For the ice cream:

500 ml of cream (or 250 ml of whole milk and 250 ml of cream)
3 egg yolks
100 grams of sugar
30 gr. cornstarch (2 tablespoons)
500 gr of crushed roasted strawberries
30 gr. invert sugar or mild honey
1 tablespoon vodka

For the strawberry meringues:

115 gr. of egg whites (about 3 long whites) at room temperature.
225 gr. of white sugar.
A pinch of salt.
A handful of crushed freeze-dried strawberries in a mortar (optional).
A few drops of strawberry extract
A few drops of red coloring for the meringues (optional).
250 ml of 35% mg cream for mounting the glass

PREPARATION

We start by roasting the strawberries:

Preheat the oven to 180ºC, heat up and down.

We clean the strawberries well under running tap water, remove the stem and cut them into two or four if they are very large.

In a bowl, mix the sugar and lemon juice. Coat all the chopped strawberries with this mixture.
We place in one layer on a baking tray covered with baking paper or as in my case, in a large ovenproof dish.
We bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let warm. Place in an airtight jar and when they have cooled, cover and place in the fridge. They can last at least a week in perfect condition and, in addition to this ice cream, they will also be used to accompany our yogurt, pancakes and other desserts. A delight.
For the ice cream, we remove half of the roasted strawberries and crush them. We reserve the rest.

For the meringues:

Preheat the oven to 150ºC and line 2 baking sheets with Silpat or baking paper.
We put the egg whites with a pinch of salt and sugar, in a bowl in a water bath, stirring constantly with a whisk until the sugar has dissolved. Be careful, that the water does not reach the bottom of the bowl where we have deposited the egg whites so that it does not cook them.
When the sugar has completely dissolved, which we will verify by rubbing a little of the mixture of egg whites and sugar between two fingers and not finding any granules, we transfer it to the Kitchen Aid bowl and beat with the balloon accessory, first at speed 2 one minute and then we quickly increase the speed until reaching the maximum, we beat like this for about 14-15 minutes until they are cold, shiny and well assembled. A couple of minutes before finishing assembling the egg whites, we add the flavoring and coloring if we use it.
We deposit large spoonfuls of meringue on the baking paper, about 6-10 cm wide by 2-4 high.
We put a handful of freeze-dried strawberries in the mortar and crush until we turn them into crumbs. Sprinkle over our meringues.
Bake for at least an hour and a half, until the meringues are lightly browned. Turn off the oven and leave it in overnight or until completely cooled. ready
A trick to know if the meringues are fully cooked is to check that they can be detached from the baking paper.

Now let's go with the ice cream:

Put the cream or milk with the cream in a medium saucepan (reserving a small glass to dissolve the cornstarch), the sugar and the inverted sugar, until it begins to boil.

In a bowl, lightly beat the egg yolks.
In a glass, dissolve the cornstarch in the reserved milk or cream and add it to the egg yolks, mixing well.
Pour the boiling milk and cream over this mixture, while stirring constantly so that it does not curdle.
Strain the mixture to remove the remains of egg telita that have set, and bring it back to medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the cream thickens slightly. You know, it will be ready when passing your finger over the spoon leaves a mark.
Remove the cream from the heat, add the roasted strawberry puree and the tablespoon of vodka and mix well.
Now with the cream in the fridge to let it cool for at least 24 hours before taking it to the fridge .
We take to the fridge and butter for about 20 minutes. At that moment we added half of the roasted strawberries that we had reserved (about 250 gr), but without the liquid that accompanies them, or we would run the risk of making our ice cream too watery and making it lose creaminess.
Once the strawberries are incorporated, we continue to keep them in the fridge for another 8-10 minutes.
Done, we must keep our ice cream in the freezer in an airtight container, and consume it as soon as possible so that it does not lose creaminess and does not harden too much and crystallize.
Of course, take it out of the freezer 10 minutes before eating, since otherwise it will be very hard.

For those of you who do not have a refrigerator , you can also prepare the ice cream, but in this case, once we have the final cream ready, take the ice cream to the freezer for half an hour, remove it and beat it to avoid crystallization. Repeat this process at least 3 or 4 times, every half hour.

To assemble the ice cream cup:

We semi-mount the cream with the balloon accessory from our Kitchen Aid . We break the meringues and distribute over the semi-whipped cream, integrating the meringue stones well.
Add a couple of tablespoons of this mixture on the base of the cup where we are going to serve the ice cream. We cover with some pieces of roasted strawberries without the juice, so that the cream does not drain and we place some balls of roasted strawberry ice cream on it. We crown with some mint leaves, which will provide a contrast of flavors and freshness, and a natural strawberry.

To enjoy.

Tips:

- The meringues serve us to take advantage of the whites of the ice cream yolks, but if you want to save work, you can also buy them.

Virginia