Strawberry ice cream

1. Hull and wash strawberries well (see tips). Purée cleaned strawberries, using an electric hand-held blender or food processor.
2. Using a wire whisk, whip the cream until thickened but not too stiff in a well-chilled bowl. It should make soft swirls, as shown in photograph 3.
3. fold the condensed milk into the cream. Add the strawberry purée and liqueur, if using, and fold in lightly but thoroughly.
4. Pour the mixture into a plastic freezer container or metal freezer trays.
5. Freeze the ice cream until it sets (becomes firm) around the edges, 1 – 2 hours.
6. Remove the ice cream from the freezer. Beat thoroughly with an electric hand-held beater or process quickly in a food processor. Return to the container and freeze again.
7. Repeat the freezing and beating process at least 2 to 4 times to ensure that there are no ice crystals.
8. Freeze until firm.
9. To serve, place scoops of ice cream in individual glasses and decorate with almond biscuits or meringues or pile scoops of ice cream into a bowl and decorate with strawberry greenery and flowers.
Makes about 1 litre.

Variations
Replace the strawberry purée with the same quantity (800 ml (3 1/5 cups)) of fresh peach, apricot or banana purée (sprinkle banana purée with lemon juice to prevent discoloration). Other berries, youngberries or boysenberries for instance, or raspberries are excellent substitutes for the strawberries.