Summer, sunshine, ice cream! That´s pretty much all I could say about today´s recipe, still, I would like to tell you a little story. The story of a young women who set forth to shoot ice cream and came back severly stressed out and with sore muscles.

Everyone who has ever tried to take pictures of ice cream will probably agree that you pretty much have to have nerves of steel to come out of it unaffected. You need patience, you need to plan thoroughly and you need to be able to work quickly under stress and pressure. All of these things are qualities I apparently don´t possess. But let´s start from the beginning…

It was a lovely sunny Saturday afternoon. My flat in the attic was well tempered at about 40°C, perfect temperature to photograph ice cream. I carefully planned and prepared the shooting, set up everything and took test pictures in order to determine the perfect lighting. Only after everything was set up I went and took the ice cream out of the freezer, placed it on the marble top and…absolutely nothing happened. My freezer did such a good job that the ice cream had the consistency of a rock. I could have used it perfectly to scare of burglars or drive nails into the walls. All I could do was wait patiently (*and by patiently I mean not patiently at all) for the ice cream to thaw. The problem with ice cream is that at first it is hard as a rock but then it will melt before your eyes in approximately five minutes. As soon as I was able to form little scoops, everything was happening all at once. I was jumping up and down the chair in order to get the perfect shot will simultaneously shouting (at my boyfriend): “I need spoons”, “PAPER TOWELS”, and “GET ME THE…THING”. Turns out, shooting ice cream is a perfect test fo relationships too. If your partner still loves you afterwards, he/she is a keeper.

The result of all this? About 200 pictures and a horribly sore muscle in my thighs. I think it was worth it though, this ice cream is incredibly fruity and perfect for those hot summer days.

Recipe: 

700 g fresh strawberries

1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar (alternative: core of 1 vanilla bean)

100 g sugar

400 g heavy cream

1) Wash strawberries, cut in half and put in a pot, together with the vinegar and sugar. Heat until cooking, reduce heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Add 200 g of heavy cream to the strawberries and blend well. Let cool until at room temperature.

2) Whip the rest of the heavy cream and fold under the strawberry mixture. Place the ice cream mixture in an ice cream maker and let freeze according to the instructions. Afterwards, put the ice cream in the freezer until thoroughly frozen. (If you don´t have an ice cream maker you can put the mixture directly in the freezer. Just make sure to thoroughly mix the mixture every half hour in order to avoid too many ice crystals).