Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream with Rose's Lighty Sweetened Strawberry Sauce

I made the strawberry sauce to be served with Quasia's wedding cake. (The wedding will take place later today.) The strawberry ice cream was an edible welcome gift to Zeynep who returned from her 1-week class trip to S. Carolina yesterday. The combination really captured the taste of strawberries at their peak.

Strawberry Ice Cream

1 pint fresh strawberries, stemmed and sliced
3 tbs freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 c sugar, divided
2 c heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a small bowl, combine the strawberries with the lemon juice and 1/3 cup of the sugar; stir gently and allow the strawberries to macerate in the juices for 2 hours. In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer or a whisk to combine the milk, and the granulated sugar until the sugar is dissolved, about 1-2 minutes on low speed. Stir in the heavy cream plus any accumulated juices from the strawberries and vanilla. Pour in the ice cream maker, and operate it according to manufacturer's instructions. Add the sliced strawberries in the last 5 minutes of freezing time. This ice cream will have a very light pink color, if desired you can add a few drops of red food color until you achieve a deeper pink. (Recipe taken from the Cuisinart Recipe booklet.)

Rose's Lighty Sweetened Strawberry Sauce

This recipe is again from the Cake Bible. The quantities below will yield 1 1/3 c sauce. When I made it for the wedding cake, I tripled the recipe.

20 oz bag whole strawberries, frozen without sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 c sugar

In a colander suspended over a deep bowl, thaw the strawberries competely. This will take several hours. Press them, if necessary, to force out the juice. There should be close to 1 1/4 c of juice.

In a small saucepan (or in a microwave) boil the juice until reduced to 1/4 cup. Pour it into a lighty oiled heatproof glass measure.

In a food processor, puree the strawberries. You should have 1 liquid cup of puree. Stir in the strawberry syrup and lemon juice. Measure again, there should be 1 1/4 cups. If you have less, add less sugar. The correct amount of sugar is 1/5 the volume of the puree.