Week two of a three-week ice cream experiment.
Week one was cream to ice cream. No flavor, no stabilizers — just the mechanics of freezing something you’d want to eat.
Week two was two ingredients. I roasted strawberries on a sheet pan to concentrate them, cracked pepper into the base, churned.
Labeled the container ROASTED STRAWBERRY & BLACK PEPPER and then crossed both out. What survived was strawberry. The base — cream, a bit of sugar — was too thin to hold the roasting or the pepper. Nothing to anchor either flavor.
Other lesson from week two: strawberry pieces freeze into shards. Fine on the spoon, rough on your teeth. Cook them down further next time, or macerate so the texture holds.
Week three this weekend: brown butter and honey, with a proper base — whole milk, cream, sugar, egg yolks, a stabilizer. The base is where the technical work is. Flavor rides on it.