Dairy-free strawberry ice cream

 

There’s something unbeatable about home-made strawberry ice cream – the combination of the intense strawberry flavour and fantastic colour make it irresistible, and you’d never guess that this one is completely dairy free! It’ll take you the best part of a day before your ice cream is ready, so start early if you want it for a particular meal.

Serves 6

400g strawberries (ideally freshly picked, juicy summer ones)

175ml tofu firm silken style
juice of half a lemon
5tbsp icing sugar
2tbsp sunflower oil
pinch of salt

Blend the tofu, oil, salt and lemon juice together using either a food processor, blender or hand blender until creamy. Then add the icing sugar and strawberries and blend until smooth. You may want to vary the amount of sugar, but if unsure err on the side of more because the sugar increases the intensity of the strawberry flavour (especially important in ice cream because it is more difficult to taste something that’s very cold). If you’ve got an ice cream maker, then the next step is a cinch – pop the mixture in and let the machine do the rest.

If you don’t, keep the mixture in its bowl and place in the freezer. After about three hours, take it out and blend again. Put it back in the freezer and repeat this action after about two hours.  An hour later, do it again – it should be more or less ready to eat at this point, but if you don’t need it straight away then pop it in a plastic tub with a lid. About 15 minutes before use, take it out of the freezer so it can melt a little. For maximum creaminess, blend just before serving.