Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Valentine's Day week, which Ryan and I have been doing wrong on purpose for years. We don't do flowers. We don't do a fancy dinner. We do a Costco rotisserie chicken on Saturday night, eaten cold from the container, on the couch, after the twins are in bed. That's our tradition. We started it the first Valentine's after the wedding because I refused to pay for a prix fixe at a place neither of us liked, and now it's a thing, and now I love it more than any restaurant meal I have ever paid for.

This year Ryan added a dessert — a slab of chocolate cake from the Aldi bakery, which costs four dollars and feeds eight people and is, against all odds, actually good. He brought it home Friday with no fanfare and put it in the fridge with a sticky note that said "Saturday." I cried a little when I saw the sticky note. I don't know why. The twins were watching Bluey. Ryan was at the firehouse. The fridge had a four-dollar cake in it for me. That was the whole reason.

The twins' daycare did Valentines on Friday — the little exchange, the construction-paper bags taped to chairs, Owen brought home a fistful of tiny cards including one that said "WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE OWEN" in a four-year-old's handwriting and Nora brought home twelve and asked if she had to be friends with all of them. I told her no, just the ones she wants to be friends with. She nodded gravely. She is going to be a difficult friend and an excellent person and I cannot wait to watch.

School this week was hard for reasons I won't put on the blog. One of my students is going through something at home. I can't fix it. I can give him a quiet corner and a snack from my desk drawer and a face that doesn't flinch when he is having a bad morning. That's the job. That's most of the job. I came home Thursday and made a giant pot of pasta e fagioli because I needed to make something where I controlled all the variables, and I ate two bowls and felt better, because that's also part of the job.

The Aldi cake was perfect — genuinely, stubbornly perfect — and I am not going to mess with the sticky-note tradition. But if you want to build something sweet to go alongside it, or if you just need a reason to make dessert on a Saturday night after the twins are finally asleep, this strawberry cheesecake ice cream is the one. It’s creamy and a little tangy and it tastes like something that took effort without actually taking much effort at all, which is pretty much the whole philosophy of our Valentine’s Day.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Freeze Time: 6 hours | Total Time: 6 hours 20 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/4 cup granulated sugar (for macerating strawberries)
8 oz cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 cups heavy whipping cream, cold
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 4 full crackers, crushed)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

Macerate the strawberries. Toss the sliced strawberries with 1/4 cup sugar in a bowl and let sit for 15 minutes, stirring once, until they release their juices. Mash roughly with a fork — you want some chunks remaining. Set aside.
Toast the graham crumble. Combine graham cracker crumbs and melted butter in a small pan over medium heat, stirring frequently for 3–4 minutes until golden and fragrant. Spread on a plate to cool completely.
Make the cheesecake base. Beat the softened cream cheese with 3/4 cup sugar, vanilla extract, and lemon juice using a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until completely smooth, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides and add the milk, mixing until combined.
Whip the cream. In a separate chilled bowl, whip the heavy cream to stiff peaks. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture in two additions, keeping as much volume as possible.
Layer and swirl. Pour half the cream mixture into a 9x5 loaf pan or freezer-safe container. Spoon half the strawberry mixture over the top and swirl lightly with a knife. Add the remaining cream mixture, swirl in the rest of the strawberries, and scatter the toasted graham crumble across the surface.
Freeze. Press a sheet of plastic wrap directly against the surface to prevent ice crystals. Freeze for at least 6 hours, or overnight, until firm.
Serve. Let the pan sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before scooping. Serve alongside chocolate cake, or eat directly from the container on the couch. Both are correct.

Nutrition (per serving)

Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream — Because Four Dollars and a Sticky Note Is Enough