Fresh Apricot Ice Cream

 

And my unofficial Apricot Week continues with recipe #2. 

Ryan rarely makes special requests for dinner/dessert. But when we brought home that bucket of apricots I talked about earlier, he specifically asked if we could turn some of them into ice cream. The man loves fruit in ice cream. I'm completely the opposite - I like the quadruple chocolate brownie pie ice cream drizzled in hot fudge/caramel/shell with all toppings physically possible piled sky high. You'd think our preferences would be switched, right? Nope. Man likes the fruity ice cream. And man got his fruity ice cream.

This turned out simply amazing. I usually cringe a little when people label something with "the best" out there (because how could they really know?) but I'm going to let Ryan bend that rule - he claims it's the best ice cream he's ever had. Dead serious. I think he was being hypnotized by the almond extract. He ate the entire batch by himself last night (with the exception of a scoop for me). I had no idea it would be such a hit with him. But how couldn't it have been? The ice cream had such a welcoming compliment of tart (not too tart) apricots with the creamy bliss of almond - all wrapped up in beautiful creamy bliss. I personally would have enjoyed it better on a warm, gooey brownie, but you can't win 'em all, eh?

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Fresh Apricot Ice Cream

Ingredients:

1 lb fresh ripe apricots 

1/2 C water

1/2 C sugar

1 C heavy cream

3 drops almond extract

lemon juice, to taste

Cut the apricots into sixths and place them in a sauce pan with water. Cover and cook over medium low heat until tender, stirring to prevent scorching. Remove from heat, add the sugar, and stir until dissolved. Cool to room temperature. 

Place the mixture in a food processor and puree until smooth. Push mixture through a fine mesh colander to remove any skins/chunks. Whisk in the cream, almond extract and lemon juice, to taste. Chill thoroughly - about 3 hours. 

Process in your ice cream maker according to manufacturers directions. Store in a separate air-tight container in freezer.

recipe source: The Perfect Scoop