Combine milk, cream, sugar and salt in a sauce pot and place over medium heat. Stir often to avoid scorching
2 cup heavy cream, 1 cup whole milk, ¾ cup sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt
Separate egg yolks from whites and whisk yolks for 1-2 minutes until they are light in color. You will not use the egg whites in this recipe.
4 egg yolks
Once the milk becomes hot and almost to a simmer, but not boiling, turn off heat
Take ¼ cup of the hot milk and slowly whisk into the egg yolks. This tempers the egg yolks so they don't scramble
Whisk the egg yolks into the hot milk and return heat to medium
Cook until it becomes a custard and temperature reaches 175°- 185° or when the milk mixture begins to thicken and coats the back of a spoon
Place a fine sieve over a bowl and strain custard. Cover and store in the refrigerator until fully chilled - at least 4 hours!
Cut up strawberries into small pieces and combine with sugar. Cover and refrigerate strawberries. Stir strawberries 1-2 times while chilling to help make certain the sugar is well distributed. The berries will begin to release their juices during this time.
2 ½ cups diced strawberries, ¼ cup sugar
Combine fully chilled custard mixture, strawberries and their juices and vanilla
1 teaspoon vanilla
Add to a fully frozen ice cream mixing bowl and churn for 20-30 minutes until mixture is frozen and thick
Remove from churning bowl and place in a freezer container. Cover and freeze for 1-2 hours until ice cream is no longer soft
Notes
Fully read through recipe instructions before beginning. There are a lot of steps and it helps to know ahead of time what will be happening.
Make certain ice cream bowl is fully frozen. My bowl takes at least 12 hours in a deep freeze to fully freeze. If bowl isn't fully frozen, ice cream will not freeze and churn properly.
Use the very best strawberries you can find!
Soak the strawberries in sugar allowing the juices to be released. Use both the strawberries and the juice in the ice cream.
Once ice cream is done churning, remove from churning bowl and freeze in the freezer for 1-2 hours. This helps harden the ice cream.
If ice cream is too hard to scoop, let set out at room temperature for 5-10 minutes.
Store in a covered container in the freezer
Quick Chill Method:
Once the custard is made, strain into a deep bowl. Place the bowl in an ice bath so the sides are covered with the ice water, but there is not danger of the water spilling over the sides into the custard.