Almost-Instant Soft-Serve

Name: Almost-Instant Soft-Serve
Total time: 15 min
Yield: Makes 3 1/2 cups
Ingredients: 1 1/2 pounds frozen strawberries, mangoes or blueberries; 3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk; 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract; Kosher salt

1,831 Ratings
3 Reviews

For this quick and delicious dessert, just puree frozen fruit with sweetened condensed milk.In 2018, Food & Wine named this recipe one of our 40 best: F&W Culinary Director Justin Chapple launched his Mad Genius platform to introduce the F&W audience to smart, fun food hacks. This one was inspired by the Spanish chef Ferran Adrià of elBulli, who made an ingenious ice cream by blending frozen fruit with sugar and fromage blanc—no ice cream maker needed. Justin swapped in sweetened condensed milk to make the recipe even more accessible. The creamy, sherbet-style dessert is one for the ages: It uses just four ingredients and comes together with a quick whirl of the food processor.

By Justin Chapple

July 2014

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Recipe Summary test

total:

15 mins

Yield:

Makes 3 1/2 cups

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds frozen strawberries, mangoes or blueberries
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Kosher salt

Directions

Step 1
In a food processor, pulse the fruit with the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla and a generous pinch of salt until the fruit is finely chopped. Puree until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes; scrape down the side of the bowl as needed. Serve soft or transfer to a metal baking pan, cover and freeze until just firm.

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Make Ahead

The soft-serve can be frozen for up to 3 days. Let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes before serving.

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Food & Wine Member

11/17/2021

The result had a good consistency and it was certainly easy! Unfortunately, I used frozen peaches (Dole). I tasted one of the peach slices before processing - the peach was mildly chemically and with very little peach taste. I should have stopped then. I tried a little Amaretto to no avail. It was still pretty bad and certainly not worth the calories. I threw it away. I hesitate to try again with strawberries because frozen strawberries can be pretty tasteless too. I think I'll wait for strawberries come into season when there's a vendor at our local farmers' market who has exquisitely ripe and highly flavorful strawberries. I'll freeze them myself and try this recipe again because I think the recipe was good but really needs really flavorful fruit to shine.

bettybil

05/13/2020

Sometimes frozen fruit has an “off” taste. Would this work just as well with fresh fruit?

Loriltx

05/07/2020

This was so easy, and so delicious! Used frozen strawberries.

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Almost-Instant Soft-Serve

Gallery

Recipe Summary test

Ingredients

Directions

Make Ahead

Reviews (3)

All Reviews for Almost-Instant Soft-Serve