Blueberry Pickin'

Every year, well at least the last three summers, I have spent many a morning at the Brewer Christmas Tree Farm picking blueberries. This is my summer therapy. When I come back from the farm with this many berries, 

approximately 8 quarts, I have to figure out what to do with all that berry deliciousness. I freeze several bags and always keep a big bowl in the frig for nibbling at will. This trip I decided to make blueberry butter in the slow cooker and blueberry gelato. I wrote about the blueberry butter this time last year on this post. The gelato was a great way to use my new ice cream maker!

How good does that look?! I assure you that it is tasty. Gelato is lower in fat and sugar so I wanted to give it a whirl in the machine.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am in LOVE with Pinterest. This gelato is on my In The Kitchen board. Now I am going to share the recipe so I can link this to that pin. This is the recipe I used as a starting point. Below is my final recipe.

You'll need 
3 cups whole milk
1/2 cup of sugar
2 heaping cups berries
1.5 tablespoons lemon zest
2 tablespoons corn starch
Fresh squeezed juice from a lime
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper


Mix berries, sugar, juice and 2 tablespoons water in a pot and simmer over low heat until the sugar dissolves and berries soften. Remove from heat and let cool. 
After it cools, add zest and cayenne pepper.
Chill this mixture overnight (I started all this on a Sunday and let it sit in the frig for 6 hours before moving on to the next step)

In a separate bowl combine 1 cup milk, corn starch until all lumps are gone.
Heat the remaining milk over low heat and just before it boils remove from heat and stir in milk with corn starch until lump free. Replace on low heat until mixture thickens. Chill this mixture overnight (Again, I started all this on a Sunday and let it sit in the frig for 6 hours before moving on to the next step)

Combine the two mixtures in your machine and let it do the magic.


The pepper gives the final product a wonderful heat and the blueberry flavor shines through because the low sugar content. My only issue is the blueberry skins are very present when you eat this gelato. I wonder if I did not cook the berries long enough or if I should have used a food mill with the berry mixture. I do not own a food mill, so it was not an option. I'll add a mill to my wish list. 

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my latest creation. 

Happy Day!

Pin It