Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Yesterday was the last day of summer, and before it was over I had to cross one more thing off of my list.

Cheesecake ice cream.

I’ve been craving it since the spring—don’t ask why, because I have no idea myself. As a special last treat before we dive into what’s bound to be the craziest school year of my life (freshman year + all online, WHAT??), I decided to make some!

The original recipe is from Handle the Heat, but I made quite a few changes of my own. It came out AMAZING!

Roasting the strawberries is something I never would have thought of, but it such a great idea! They were soft and juicy and this really brought out the flavor. Just like an ice cream shop (except better)!

So, onto the things I changed:

• Instead of using 3/4 cup of sugar, I reduced it to 1/4 cup and added in 1/4 cup of Stevia. It was still perfectly sweet—not missing anything!
• I omitted the corn syrup, which was optional.
• We didn’t have any whole milk, so I used 2% and added in a little bit extra heavy cream.
• Neufchâtel cheese in place of cream cheese. It’s essentially the same thing.
• We didn’t have any sea salt, but regular iodized salt didn’t make any difference.
• Rather than chopping the graham crackers (in a blender, I assume), I crushed them with a spoon. This way there was a little more variety in the sizes of the crumbles.

When mixing the berries and graham crackers in at the end, I held back just about 1/4 of the stuff to stir in at the very end. That way, there was a sort of ribbon of toppings in addition to the ones that were evenly mixed in.

This ice cream made a perfect last-day-of-summer treat! I will definitely be making it again.