Strawberry Italian Ice

After making lemon and orange for a while, I decided to branch out, this was one of the successful ones. 

Ingredients:
1 lb carton of strawberries

1 1/2 cups of water

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 cup of water (separate)

Tools:

Ice Cream Maker 

2 qt saucepan

2x 1qt freezer safe containers

Blender/Food processor

Preparation: 
Remove the tops of the strawberries and place in a blender/food processor. (I use a Ninja so its theoretically both).  Begin to blend together and add 1 cup of water to thin down the mix. Once the strawberries are the consistency of a smoothie/milkshake, they are done. Remove from the blender and cool in the refrigerator. (the cooler they are at the start of freezing, the faster the ice will form). 

In a saucepan, mix 1 1/2 cups of water and 1 1/2 cups of sugar to make a simple syrup. Stir together well over high heat and when bubbles begin to form, remove from heat and set aside to cool. The cooling process can be accelerated by placing the simple syrup in a container and surrounding that container with ice + salt water. 

Mix together the syrup and strawberry mix in the ice cream maker and begin churning on a higher speed (if using a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, speed setting is 6 or 7).  This will need to run for a while as you are looking for the presence of the ice crystals to form. Stop the mixer every so often to manually scrape down the sides (this will give you a better idea of how close the mix is to freezing as the ice on the sides and the ice in the middle will look similar in texture. If there is ice on the sides but the middle is still liquid, keep churning. 

Once the volume of ice crystals is visibly greater than 90% of the mix (meaning that there is a small amount that will still appear as liquid) pour out of the ice cream maker into 1 qt freezer safe containers and allow to chill for another 24 hours before eating. 

Serving:
Using a warmed ice cream scoop, serve into bowls, cups, glasses, etc.