I just stumbled upon the coolest treat and I had to give it a try!
Over at AllRecipes, I was cruising the most popular strawberry recipes. My goal: a good way to use some of the 4 quarts of strawberries that we picked up during our yearly visit to Blueberry Hill Strawberry Farm over in Cobden, IL. When I ran into a highly rated recipe called, “Strawberry Ice”, the Southern Illinois heat persuaded me to click and with one glance at the super simple ingredient list, I knew I had a winner.
The ratio of raw strawberry and lemon juice to sugar is pretty darn low, I thought, and I reduced the sugar a little more since our strawberries are already nice and sweet.
It took all of ten minutes to chop up a few cups of strawberries, add lemon and sugar water, and blend. Now, I’ve got the mixture in the freezer where I’ll probably be checking on it every ten minutes, trying not to drool on myself!
I took a sip right before sealing it up for freezing and I must admit – I was tempted to drink the entire thing and skip the whole freezing process!
I’ll update below the recipe to let you all know how it turns out after freezing. :)
Strawberry Ice
Ingredients
- 5 cups fresh or frozen unsweetened strawberries, thawed
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2/3 cup water
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
Directions
- Place the strawberries in a blender or food processor; cover and process until smooth. In a saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil. Cook and stir until sugar is dissolved, about 5 minutes; cool slightly. Add to blender. Add lemon juice; cover and process until combined.
- Pour into a shallow freezer container; cover and freeze for 4-6 hours or until almost frozen. Just before serving, whip mixture in a blender or food processor.
* * * UPDATE! * * *
WOW. This stuff is amazing. It reminds me of strawberry daiquiri mix, but frozen and MUCH healthier! I set it out this morning after letter it freeze overnight and after a couple of hours, it’s the perfect consistency. Just thawed enough that I can eat it with a spoon.
It has an extremely strong strawberry flavor (which is wonderful!) but the lemon flavor is definitely there, too – it’s a great combination. And it’s nice to know that I didn’t have to add a ton of sugar to get this great, sweet flavor!
It’s also a very pretty bright pink – identical to the photo above. I have a feeling that most of the farm strawberries we came home with are going to end up in little freezer containers so that I can enjoy them like this further into the summer. I can’t guarantee they are going to last that long, though!