From the Kitchen - Cantaloupe Ice Cream

I'm totally and completely addicted to ice cream.  My mom gave me a Cuisinart electric ice cream maker last summer to help feed my habit and it has changed my life (and my pant's size).  Once you go homemade it's very hard to go back to the store bought stuff, even the good stuff. 

I tend to make custard base ice creams in the winter, like peppermint, cookies and cream.  They are more work but taste very eggnogg-y and Christmas-y.  I like to make easy milk and cream fruit ice creams in the summer when fruit goes on sale and I come home with three bags of strawberries, cherries and melon. 

I bought a huge locally grown cantaloupe that tasted like a party in my mouth.  Kramer would approve of this melon.  I made fresh peach ice cream last week and ate it in about 4 days, so to get my fix I wanted to try adapting my peach recipe to use up some of this gargantuan melon. 

I was worried the melon would hold too much liquid and the ice cream would separate or get crunchy when it froze, but it was fine, perfect even.  The end result is a creamy ice cream (not sorbet-like at all) that smells and tastes like summer. 

Cantaloupe Ice Cream

Half of one very large cantaloupe, or one small melon.
1 cup sugar - divided
Juice of one lemon
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract (use the good stuff)
2 cups cream

Dice up cantaloupe making sure to only include the peachy parts, no rind.  Place the chopped melon in a bowl and mix in 1/2 cup of sugar and the juice of one lemon.  Cover and let it macerate for 2 hours.

Mash the cantaloupe pieces - I use my mashed potato smasher.  You want raisin size pieces - too large and they'll crystallize and get too crunchy in the ice cream, too small and you miss the texture of the fruit.

Mix together 1 cup milk and the other 1/2 cup sugar until sugar is completely dissolved.  Add vanilla extract, and 2 cups cream, then add the mashed fruit and all the liquid.

Add it to your ice cream maker and follow your instruction manual.  Mine was done mixing after about 23 minutes, then I moved it to the freezer to firm up for a couple of hours, until I couldn't wait any longer to dig in!

Click here for a Printable Recipe Card.