I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying: “Really, Allie? It’s October! Why are you giving us a recipe for strawberry ice cream? We realize that you think ice cream should be eaten all year round, but still . . . ”

Listen, I can explain. I was originally no keener on the idea of strawberry ice cream in October than you are. For although I am not, perhaps, the strictest of seasonal eaters (I have to eat an apple every day, all year round, and don’t object to the occasional basket of supermarket cherry tomatoes for salad in December), I consider out-of-season strawberries one of the most tragic, disappointing foods that you can buy.

However, my sister, who is writing a series of study guides on C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, is currently working on her guide for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And since this means that the whole family has to read the book over again, in order to have the story fresh in our minds for editing, she decided that we might as well read it out loud for our “Reading and Refreshments” event on our Sibling Writery blog.

Now, Dawn Treader is probably our favourite of the Narnian chronicles, but when it came time to find a recipe for the refreshment from the book, I was initially stumped. Lewis always has plenty of feasting going on in his books, but the meals in Dawn Treader mostly involve heroic and vaguely medieval dishes, such as roast goat, cold peacock, and mead. All very interesting to read about, of course, but not very easy to cook. The only thing mentioned in the story that seemed appropriate for my needs was strawberry ice.

Which is why I found myself standing in the greengrocer’s and reluctantly paying over the money for a pint of decidedly uninspiring-looking strawberries.

Then I had to find a recipe for an ice cream, and since I don’t have an ice-cream machine, this always proves a bit of a challenge. But then I chanced upon a no-churn recipe that called for using a combination of Greek yoghurt and whipped cream as the dairy, so I pulled out the blender and started prepping my ingredients.

And then I had my stroke of inspiration. (Well, you knew there had to be a reason why I was here telling you about this, didn’t you?) It so happened that I had two small pots of honey-flavoured Greek yoghurt hanging about in the fridge, stragglers left over from a pack bought on impulse. They were becoming quite a nuisance—you know, the sort of thing that your mother politely inquires “just when do you intend to use these up” whenever she is unpacking groceries and trying to organize everything in the refrigerator.

It struck me that the sweet, floral notes of the honey might help compensate for the flat, rather sharp taste of the strawberries. Happily, it did.

The ice cream came out with the most gorgeous, happy pink hue—and the flavour matched it. The entire family devoured it. Even I, who admit to being less than enthusiastic about strawberry ice cream in general, was thoroughly disconsolate when the last bite had been scraped out of the container.

Can you imagine how good it would have been in June? Just something to think about next strawberry season . . .

This recipe is my submission to the Random Recipe challenge run by Dom of Belleau Kitchen. By a fortunate coincidence, Dom chose “random internet search” as the theme for this month’s challenge. I found my recipe inspiration by searching “no-churn strawberry ice” and then clicking on the fourth item of the third page of the search results—a pre-determined combination. Pretty good luck, wasn’t it?

It is also my contribution to this month’s Alphabakes, which is co-hosted by Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline of Caroline Makes. The letter for this month was “I”, and Caroline is hosting.

And as the recipe finally cleared those two pots of honey yoghurt out of my fridge before they expired, I am submitting this ice cream to the No Waste Food Challenge from Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary, which is being hosted this month by Vohn’s Vittles.

Finally, I am also linking up with the lovely Cook, Blog, Share event, organized weekly by Lucy of Super Golden Bakes.

Update: November 10th, 2014

Jen of the Beantown Baker has asked me to link up my recipe with her Power of Pink challenge. Jen is donating $100 dollars to the charity of the winner’s choosing, so if you’ve made anything pink this year, grab the badge and join in the fun with a worthy cause!

Strawberry-Honey Ice

Adapted from www.howstuffworks.com

Ingredients:

1 pint strawberries, rinsed and hulled

¼ cup (50 g.) caster sugar

Zest of ½ lemon

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 cup (240 ml) honey-flavoured Greek yoghurt

1 cup (240 ml) double cream, whipped

 

 Technique:

1. Puree the strawberries, sugar, lemon zest, juice, and yoghurt in a blender until smooth.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the cream until it holds soft peaks.
3. Using a rubber spatula, fold the whipped cream into the strawberry-yoghurt mixture, just until no streaks of white remain. Pour into a freezer-safe container and place in the freezer.
4. Chill for six hours or overnight, until firm. If you prefer a creamier texture, like machine-made ice cream, take the mixture out of the freezer every hour, and break it up and stir it briskly with a fork to crush up the ice crystals.
5. If you’re freezing the ice cream overnight, or simply don’t want to bother with stirring every hour, the mixture will freeze up quite hard and solid. So, when you want to serve it, let it thaw on the counter for 15 minutes or so, and then break it up and mash it about with a fork a little before scooping it. It will be a little more icy than store-bought ice cream, but the flavour is so much better that I don’t think you will care.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings