Summer cabin apricot ice cream

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‘Who forgot to bring the ice cream maker?’

Blood-curdling words to start a vacation. Don’t be the one everybody blames for not being able to make fresh fruit ice cream. Just remember this recipe.

The luscious, melting texture of ice cream is due to the fact that it has a lot of air whipped into it. An ice cream maker accomplishes this during the freezing process. This clever recipe inserts the air first -- it makes a custard sauce and whips it as it cools, then it folds in whipped cream. At that point all you have to do is stick it into a refrigerator freezer compartment and leave it. Any sort of mold will work -- a bowl, even a bunch of ice cube trays.

It comes out like regular ice cream but with a faint crunchiness, like Italian spumoni. (In fact, it is spumoni.) Stone fruits and berries work best as flavors.

If you can get your hands on some chocolate ice cream, you can even turn not having an ice cream maker into an advantage. Let the chocolate ice cream soften a little so you can line a large mixing bowl with it. Fill the cavity with the apricot spumoni mixture, freeze the whole thing, and you’ll have an impressive classic French dessert: bombe africaine. (Use another flavor and you’ll have invented your own bombe.)

To make Summer Cabin Ice Cream, start with one cup of fresh fruit purée. (If you’re using apricots, peel and pit four of them and then pureé them in whatever equipment you have -- a food processor is best, of course.) For a frozen dessert, fruit flavors might need a little perking up, so beat in 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of sugar.

Then make a syrup by boiling half a cup of water with one cup of sugar until it’s clear. Take it off the heat and let it cool. Stir in the purée along with eight lightly beaten egg yolks, put it back on the heat and cook, stirring, until it thickens. A good sign it’s ready is that when you stir around the bowl with a spoon and then remove it, the mixture doesn’t keep moving but comes to a stop. Remove from the heat and beat it until it’s cool.

Meanwhile, whip a cup and a third of whipping cream until it forms stiff peaks. Dump it onto the cooled apricot stuff and fold it into the mixture by repeatedly scooping with a big spoon from the bottom of the bowl up through the whipped cream until the texture is uniform. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for two or three hours.

You didn’t need an ice cream maker. In fact, you planned this all along. That’s your story, and you’re sticking with it.

-- Charles Perry