Ice Cream Sunday: Red Velvet and Blueberry Ice Cream

Holidays are fun for many reasons, but the top reason in my book is enjoying awesome food with people you love. Sometimes the food stems from a family tradition, a cultural expectation, an excuse to indulge, or just a reason to make something with a theme. Whatever the reason, food really makes a lot of holidays truly special. 

This ice cream is definitely less tradition and more novelty, but that type of holiday food can be the most fun! Also, just because this ice cream is red white and blue, doesn't mean you can't eat it in March or September. Celebrate your freedom to choose your ice cream year round! 

That being said, this recipe is totally perfect for the Fourth of July. It has the colors, it's delicious and it would be perfect for cooling down on a hot July day. Make this and I promise people will come to your barbecue . I'm not even having a barbecue and a few people have already invited themselves over. Which I'm cool with, come eat all this ice cream! It's BYOWC (Bring Your Own Waffle Cone...duh). 

Fresh or frozen blueberries can be used, and it's up to you if you want to go the extra mile and bake your own red velvet cake. Personally that was a little too time consuming, so I just whipped up a red velvet cake from a mix. Still totally delicious. If you're really not feeling it, I bet some store bought red velvet cake would be yummy too. 

Red Velvet and Blueberry Ice Cream

Base:

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups heavy cream

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Extras:

About 2 cups red velvet cake, cubed (store bought or home made)

2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

1/4 cup sugar

1. First let's make the base! With an electric mixer or whisk, combine milk, sugar and vanilla until combined. Add cream and vanilla and stir to combine. Cover and place in fridge for several hours or overnight. 

2. While bade is cooling, place blueberries and sugar in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, occasionally stirring. As blueberries become softer, use your stirring utensil to gently mash and squeeze out some juice and crush some berries.When sugar is completely disolved and the juice has made some syrup, place in an airtight container and refrigerate until completely chilled (I waited about 6 hours). 

3. Cut red velvet cake into small cubes and refrigerate for a couple hours until chilled. 

4. When all components are thoroughly chilled, pour base into ice cream maker and let the mixture thicken. Once it has become the texture of soft serve, add blueberries one cup at a time. If you would like your ice cream to still have a white base, only let blueberries and ice cream mix for a few seconds. If you prefer more blue and less white, let mix completely. 

5. If you desire soft serve texture, pour ice cream in serving bowl and stir in red velvet cake. If you prefer harder ice cream, find the airtight container you want to freeze your ice cream in. Place a layer of red velvet cake in container, followed by a layer of ice cream. Continuing layering until all ice cream is in your container (I did 3 layers). Place ice cream in freezer and let freeze for about 2 hours or overnight.