Graham Cracker Blueberry Swirl Ice Cream

Now this, this alone is a pretty convincing reason to get an ice cream machine. It's so easy to perfect a flavor when you can taste as you go along. Of course, there are still things I would change, but this ice cream is prettty good.

Most of the time at my internship I'm uploading recipes. Every now and then I find a recipe that I like, and I go searching for it on the blogs that I like, and then I get totally off track and stumble onto things like this that make me rush home to my ice cream machine and get churning. This ice cream is so simple, just prepare your basic vanilla recipe and add three crushed graham crackers (next time I would definitely add more). Once the ice cream is finished, layer it in a freezer container with blueberry pie filling (though not so thick, or you'll have frozen chunks of blueberry filling which is what I had. Not that that's a bad thing, at all, it's just a preference).

The ice cream was graham-crackery, creamy and delicious. And it saved me the trouble of having to make a pie and ice cream separately. I love twofers.

A Pie and Ice Cream

(triple berry pie)

Let me start by saying that berry pies are not my fave. Would I take a slice at a party? Probably not. If I were stranded on a dessert island with nothing but a berry pie, would I eat it? Absolutely. I like fruit desserts, I just like chocolate/caramel/chocolate better. But the 4th of July calls for a pie, a triple berry pie with oozy fruit filling and a flaky buttery crust. And what's a pie without homemade ice cream.

My brand new ice cream machine. Cause, ya know, I needed it. I was getting jealous of so many food bloggers who post delicious homemade ice cream recipes. They brag how simple it is, and how the machines are so affordable and kitchen friendly that there's no excuse for not having one. And it's robins egg blue and just so cute.

Oh hello.

Anyway, back to the pie. I'm not going to post the ice cream recipe because it was your standard vanilla. Just some heavy cream, milk, vanilla, and sugar. And it was a bit sweet for me, so I'm going to test out different ratios before I post the go-to vanilla recipe. So the pie. It uses a ton of berries, like I still didn't add as much as the recipe called for and the pie was overflowing, so I don't know, maybe I have a shallow pie pan. Or maybe my berries didn't reduce as much. 

And my attempt at a lattice pie crust worked out well! It was actually so easy, I used this tutorial. My dad thought the pie was a bit sweet, but I thought it was perfect with the tartness of the berries (my blackberries were particularly tart, also $3.99 a container, I should invest in my own blackberry bush).

I followed this recipe for the pie, just altered the berry ratios. I used a lot more blueberries because I felt the need to buy a pound of them because they looked so good. 

The pie was gone in a day. So much work for just a few hours of deliciousness. I'll post more ice cream recipes when I get around to making them. Chocolate's next. Or salted caramel. Or s'mores. Or all three...