There are not nearly enough purple foods. It’s such an enticing colour. It’s why grape-flavoured things seem so awesome (and often are). Ice cream is no exception to this rule. Just as I was drawn to the ‘rainbow’ flavoured ice cream as a kid (it was legit vanilla ice cream, just dyed), so am I drawn to all the magical shades in the ice cream arsenal now.
The only difference is that I could do without the food colouring, especially since nature offers so many delicious and beautiful ways to add colour, pizazz AND flavour naturally. Enter, the mulberry.
I’m on a who-knows-how-long mulberry bender, which started with me eating them straight from the tree (literally last year), then freezing our whole crop, and now finally getting around to using them. First there was this Mulberry Mess; a fine and decadent dessert. And now there’s the gorgeous purple ice cream you see in front of you.
The vibrancy of colour and flavour you get in this recipe is pretty epic, considering there’s only a cup of mulberries in the whole batch. Which is great because mulberries are hard to find in stores, and so my tree’s worth is pretty precious to me.
All is not lost, however, if you can’t get any mulbs. This recipe works wonderfully as a blueprint for any berry ice cream – blueberry, blackberry, raspberry or cherry or even BOYSENBERRIES if you can get your hands on them (they’re even harder to find than mulberries in my experience).
The recipe technique, of course, comes from Jeni Britton Bauer – and it makes the best and easiest homemade ice cream ever.
A dripping scoop of this ice cream, smudged between two digestive biscuits is a pretty awesome thing. The sweet, creamy, berry-fragrant ice cream takes on a cheesecake-y edge next to the buttery crunch of a cookie.
But this would be just as great served with more berries and a dollop of whipped cream, and hey why not crumble over a meringue to make a kind of mulberry-meringue-mess-sundae? Or just put a scoop in a cone and take an artsy instagram photo with your sunglasses on? Whatever, you do you! And enjoy it!
xx Sarah.
- 1 cup mulberries
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 2 cups (500ml) milk
- 2 tbsp cornflour
- 3 tbsp cream cheese
- pinch of salt.
- 1 + ¼ cup (310ml) cream (heavy whipping/double cream)
- ⅔ cup (150g) caster sugar
- 2 tbsp glucose syrup
- Place the berries and sugar into a small saucepan and cook over a low heat, stirring, until the berries wilt and give up their juice (about 5 minutes if frozen).
- Press the mixture through a sieve into a small bowl, making sure to get all the juice, and stir in the vanilla. Discard the seeds.
- Take 2 tbsp of the milk and mix with the cornflour in a small bowl.
- Place the cream cheese and salt into a large mixing bowl, and beat until smooth. Slowly whisk in the berry puree, making sure there no lumps.
- Place the remaining milk, the cream, sugar and glucose into a large saucepan over a medium heat, and bring up to a full rolling boil. Boil for 4 minutes, then remove from the heat, and whisk in the cornflour mixture.
- Place back on the heat for a minute, or until the mixture thickens.
- Remove from the heat, and slowly whisk the thickened cream mix into the cream cheese and berry mix. Leave to cool slightly, and then cover and chill completely in the fridge (at least four hours of overnight).
- Churn in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions.
This is beautiful. Just beautiful.
Delicious! I love the natural colour of the mulberries! So pretty.
Katie xoxo
This looks just gorgeous! The purple is beautiful. I love that you used digestive biscuits as well. I’ve never thought to use them for ice cream sandwiches but I imagine they work perfectly.
Cannot believe how ridiculously creamy this looks WITHOUT making a custard base!!?!?! Is the whole egg custard thing actually overrated? I gotta try this really soon!
Yeah boo! You gotta try this recipe – you’ll never make egg-based ice cream again!
purple purple and more purkle! Any excuse to create this vibrant ice with such sweet tang. Love it Sarah :)
Purple IS such an enticing colour! That ice cream looks awesome. It’s funny, we don’t have grape flavoured stuff over in the UK much. Our purple flavoured things all tend to be blackcurrent.
Nailing it once again with the color! I absolutely love this, especially in that sammie form! I just made some ice cream sandwiches a couple weeks back and am sad that I’ve eaten them all. I’ll have to make this ice cream to change that! Adding meringue is a fabulous idea.
I haven’t even tried mulberries before!! NEED to get on that…and this ice cream!
I just read an article about how apparently grape ice cream isn’t a thing because grapes are full of anthocyanin(?) which refuses to freeze. Isn’t that interesting?
Anyway, mulberry ice cream is way better than grape anyway and purple is the best color ever so i give this 5 out of 5 stars.
OH man – your modern style photos have been so on point lately! So in love with your current style!!!
Love your use of mulberry. Creamy and dreamy!! I remember picking mulberries around the corner from my childhood home, as many as I could before getting kicked off the lady’s property. So hard to find … Lucky you that you have a tree :) Lucky me that you shared this lovely recipe!
I’ve heard a few people rave about Jeni’s icecream technique, I really have to give it a try! Probably with blackberries, ‘cause those I have :)
mulberry’s right up there with purple yam / ube icecream <3
This is great way to serve ice cream. I will make some ice cream like this on the weekend :)
Wow!!! This was fantastic. I’ve made many batches of ice cream over the years, but this was by far the most superior tasting of them all. I only substituted fresh raspberries from my garden, seeing as there are no mulberries to be had in this area. This recipe competes with our local organic ice cream shop! Absolutely delicious.
YAYYYY!!!! You’ve totally made my day Jennifer – I’m so glad you liked it! And I bet it was AMAZING with home-grown raspberries, I wish I could grow them here! So happy that you tried this out and loved it! xx Sarah
Looks so amazing! Love the flavor of ice cream!