My mother has had a rough week. On Monday, she has left a message on my phone. “Hello. This is your mother speaking.” (I know – we’ve met – I recognize your voice.) “My septic tank is on tilt. I will be staying at your sister’s tonight until your brother can figure out where it is and how to fix it. Goodbye.” Later that evening, I called my sis to check in on how she and Neeners were doing. She replied, “Fine. At about 5:00 Neeners came into the kitchen and said ‘I am in need of nourishment. Where do you keep the gin?’ She was in bed by 8:00. All good.”
And after the septic dilemma, there was the Morning Glory infestation. And finally, to top it all off, she lost her glasses. In an attempt to hide them from the dog, she misplaced them and they have yet to turn up. I would say she requires some ice cream. Lucky for Neeners, so do I. I have no reason, I just want it.
I’m going to show you how to make the easiest soft serve ice cream you ever saw. Three ingredients. Five minutes. Done. Because it is so easy, we’ll fancy it up some and make three different kinds and layer them in a loaf pan. When you slice off a piece, you’ll see a rainbow. Let’s get started.
I chose Peach to show you since it’s my favorite. Here’s all you’ll need: Sweetened Condensed Milk, a Lime, and 9 cups of semi-frozen Peaches.
Here’s the most important part of this whole thing: the fruit really should be semi-frozen. When I attempted this recipe using hard frozen fruit, I nearly burned up my food processor. He could not handle the volume or the resulting very firm consistency. He was smoking hot and had to go into ‘time out’ mode for about half an hour before I could attempt the next batch. If you happen to have frozen solid fruit, just microwave in 30-second intervals until it looks like this:
First, pour the Sweetened Condensed Milk into the food processor, followed by the lime juice and half of the fruit.
Process until smooth and creamy.
Now add the second half of the fruit.
Process again until creamy. At this point I would highly recommend you have a big bowl all to yourself. You will probably get brain freeze but it will be worth it – trust me on this. The rest goes into the freezer because we need to have our mixture frozen but scoopable for the rest of this exercise.
And now comes the fun part. Not as fun as eating it, but still fun: we’re going to put this all together. The first thing we need to do is get a regular loaf pan and line it with plastic wrap. This will make it easy to lift your work of art out of the pan after all is said and done. The recipe attached asks you to make 3 different kinds of ice cream: Boysenberry, Peach, and Raspberry. You don’t have to but I did, so that’s what we’re working with.
The first layer goes down in the pan. Be generous and fill the pan about 1/3 of the way full. It seems easier to me to use and ice cream scoop, then level it out with the back of a big spoon. Your call.
Once that’s done, the second layer goes down. This time, it’s Peach. That is, if there is any left after you ‘tasted’ it.
Time for the topper. Here we go with Raspberry:
Wrap it all up and into the freezer it goes until frozen solid.
And now some patience is involved. About 10-20 minutes before you are ready to serve, take this concoction out of the freezer and let it unthaw just a little. It will make it easier to slice, and I think it tastes a lot better if not so hard you need a chisel to spoon off a piece. And here you have it:
Now you get to eat it. At last!! I’d like to introduce you to Ian, one of my favorite recipe testers. I say this not only because he is a fine human being, but also because he likes everything I cook. Also, Ian has been known to consume an entire Rhubarb Cake all by himself in a 12-hour period. You really have to admire that kind of dedication.
FRUITED ICE CREAM TERRIENE
Ingredients
- 9 cups of fresh or semi-frozen* peaches
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
- 2-3 Tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 9 cups of fresh or semi-frozen*raspberries
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
- 2-3 Tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 9 cups of fresh or semi-frozen* boysenberries
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
- 2-3 Tablespoons fresh lime juice
Instructions
- Repeat these steps for each batch:
- In a food processor, pulse the fruit and sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, and salt until fruit is finely chopped. Puree until smooth.
- You can eat this right away and it will have the consistency of soft serve.
- If you’d prefer your ice cream to be more firm, or are making a terrine, transfer to container, cover, and freeze until frozen solid. Allow ice cream to stand at room temperature for 10 minutes or more before serving.
- To assemble: Line two loaf pans with plastic wrap, both lengthwise and crosswise, so you have plastic wrap hanging over the sides of the pan on all sides.
- Using an ice cream scoop, scoop enough boysenberry ice cream into the pan to cover the bottom. Smooth out with a butter knife or back of a large spoon.
- Repeat the process with the peach ice cream, and then the raspberry ice cream.
- Fold plastic wrap over the top and add more if needed. Freeze until ready to use. All you have to do is lift it out of the pan and turn it upside down on a serving plate. Slice with a sharp knife dipped in hot water to make sure you get a nice clean slice.
Notes
Might be fun to layer some fresh fruit into your terrine. Strawberries would be really good. Watch out for fruit with big seeds. Boysenberries are notorious for that so you might want to choose another berry.
Pssst: my favorite next to Peach is Mango. Buy frozen Mango chunks and take it from there.