Freaking Good Home Made Blackberry Ice Cream & Stehly Organic Farms Story
Blackberry Ice Cream Recipe
Know the difference between an average blackberry and a Stehly Organic Farms blackberry? Amazement. Pure eye-rolling amazement. As if Mother Nature herself reached down and handed you a blackberry and said, “Here. This is what a blackberry should be.” Plump. They have a deep, round sweetness that is counterbalanced perfectly by the classic blackberry tang. But just a subtle tang, not enough to overstay its welcome and overshadow the flavor of the berry.
We were first introduced to Stehly Farms when on assignment for Whole Foods. They are one of the local farms which the southern California Whole Foods carry. The are proud (and rightfully so) of their local farmers and are bringing attention to these amazing people behind the scenes.
In our early morning exploration of their farm, Noel (one of the two brothers owning and operating the farm) drove us about where ever we wanted to see and photograph. You can imagine all the garden geek talk going on in that truck. Not that we like amazing citrus, avocado, or berries. We’re only marginally obsessed after all.
At one point he mentions that he thinks the blackberries may just be starting to ripen. “Blackberries?”, we perk.
photographing the cute Stehly children
Blackberry Vines Galore
We drove over to the vines and begin to stroll amongst the bees. So many flowers and soon to be fruit. Then we saw it. A hint of black. Then a little more. Finally a cluster with a few fully ripe berries.
We finger limbo-ed through the vines and their thorns and gently plucked the ripe berries. Slightly warmed from the sun, it was a moment of pure bliss as we ate those first blackberries. We continued our search and scavenged up another 20 or so berries to photograph. Although I’m positive everyone was snacking a couple for every one which was put in the shoot basket, nobody mentioned a word of their secret finds. Sneakies.
As Noel was fawning over his berries, he mentioned how they love to make blackberry ice cream from their pickings. “We are going to have to do that” I thought to myself. That sounded heavenly good. Especially now knowing how extraordinary his berries were.
A few weeks later we stopped in the local Whole Foods to grab some produce for another client’s shoot. We spied the Stehly Farms blackberries. After picking up several containers, visions of making blackberry ice cream flooded my head.
We popped open one of the containers on the way home and started snacking on the blackberries. Somehow the container emptied in the 10 minute drive home. And then the next disappeared, and it would have been a waste to make such a small batch of ice cream with the remaining one basket, so we ate it.
No ice cream for us.
The next few weeks were crazy busy preparing for an aikido test and our trip to Boston where we were speaking at the International Conference on Food Styling and Photography. Since we were going to be in Boston for almost a week, we kept grocery shopping to a minimum. So… no ice cream for us.
We got home from Boston this past Tuesday. Wednesday, pre-dawn A.M., we were heading down to Encinitas to photograph the grand opening of a brand spanking new Whole Foods. Know the first thing we saw when walking through their front doors? That’s right! A huge display filled with the Stehly Organic Farms blackberries. And they were on sale for the grand opening! Hell yeah!
This time we got enough to eat and enough to make ice cream. After the batch was done, and all Diane could say between spoons, “This is freaking good ice cream.”
-Todd
The Stehly Organic Farms Family: The shot list for this shoot was to capture the farm, details and most importantly the Stehly family story. The latter shots were our favorite.
fresh blackberries from the organic farm …. straight to the beauty shot
detail of the beauty shot, highlight the immediately fresh farm to table
the youngest Stehly & the most fearless
she loves to fly
The Stehly brothers & their family nestled in their groves
This story and recipe was originally published in 2011 and re-published in 2019 with updated photos.
Blackberry Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups Milk (375ml) we prefer whole milk
- 1 1/2 cups Sugar (300g)
- 4 large Egg Yolks
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract (5ml)
- 1 1/2 cups Heavy Whipping Cream (375ml)
- 2 cups pureed Blackberries * see head note (480ml) (approx. 4 - 6 oz baskets of berries)
- 1 Tablespoon fresh Lemon Juice (15ml)
Equipment
Instructions
- Combine the milk and sugar in a saucepan and gently warm to just less than scalding.
- Whisk egg yolks and vanilla extract in a medium bowl. Slowly pour the warm milk into the eggs, whisking constantly. Next pour the egg/milk mix back into the saucepan.
- Heat the milk/egg mix over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it coats the back of a spoon.
- Combine the blackberry puree and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Cover with a strainer, and pour the milk/egg mixture into the blackberry mixture through the strainer to catch any chunky egg bits. Stir in the heavy cream.
- Stir until cool over an ice bath. Cover and thoroughly chill in the refrigerator (at least a couple hours.)
- Churn in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions (usually about 15 minutes but times will vary depending on ice cream maker).
Nutrition
I have made this recipe with home grown blackberries from my back yard. Everyone loves it!
My aunt has LOTS of blackberry bushes in her back yard, so my little brother and I get the joy of being the first to pick them in the summer. We have a GIANT bowl of fresh blackberries in our kitchen. Saw this recipe and I am so excited to try in in a few hours! It looks amazing!
I tried. I followed the recipe exactly. I used juice from fresh berries instead of purée, and the ice cream would not set. It was a great beverage but it didn’t become ice cream even after an our in the churn. Any ideas?
Hi Jon,
That might be from a few different things. The juice would definitely make it more runny. Puree has a thicker body to it. You might have needed to cook the egg/milk mixture a little longer. The other cause for ice cream not setting is the bowl wasn’t cold enough when it was churning. Sometimes when the ice cream maker doesn’t get things to set well, you can still transfer it to a vessel and freeze it. It will often have developed enough of a creaminess that it will finish freezing fine. We’ve tried making back to back batches in an pre-freeze bowl style ice cream maker, thinking it felt cold enough, and it would never set the second batch.
Glad it was at least a tasty beverage for you.
This is just a gorgeous recipe, I would love to make it, but I don’t have an ice cream maker. How can I good ice cream without that.
I would love to hear your advice here. Thanks a million. Many years ago I participated on your food photography workshop on Creative…… can’t remember the name anymore. Anyhow I was fascinated by your creativity and put some of it in practice in my photography work. Thank you both, you are an amazing couple
I love making this during the summer. The blackberry is so refreshing and so much fresher homemade. Our kids love it!
The best homemade ice cream recipe ever! You guys know your ice cream.
Omgoodness! This is such an amazing and tasty recipe! Thank you so much for sharing this! First time I have ever made ice cream and it won’t be the last!
Yay! So glad you enjoyed the recipe Rose.
Todd and Diane, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been making this ice cream for three summers now, and it is by far the best ice cream I’ve ever made, and certainly one of the best I’ve ever had! Every time I offer it to my family or to guests, they rave about how good it is whether they’ve had it before or not.
I’m lucky enough to live somewhere where blackberry bushes grow everywhere like weeds, so we have a virtually unlimited, free supply of blackberries for 3 or 4 weeks every the summer. Every summer I make several quarts of this ice cream, and at the end of every summer, I always regret not picking more blackberries so that I could have made more of it :). Thanks so much for this recipe!
I found the frozen seeds really distracting in the finished ice cream (these were from wild Himalayan blackberries, though, so maybe they’re larger than the cultivated kind). Fortunately, the recipe made twice as much as my ice cream maker would hold, so I was able to strain the second half of the batch. Delicious.
You weren’t joking about freaking good! It turned out so well! I didn’t puree the berries. I kind of mashed up a few of them in the custard and then added the rest whole. They froze up kind of hard. Whoops! Guess I should learn to follow directions 🙂
I like that you put in the ice cream recipe, but directions about how to puree the blackberries and not have a bunch of seeds in the ice cream would have been helpful. Do you strain the puree through cheese cloth or just what should one do? Or do you make the ice cream with the seeds – that doesn’t seem like it would be pleasant.
We leave the seeds in. Everyone has their own preference for texture, hence all the variations of all the different pulped to no pulp OJ’s on the market. If you are are the no seed type of person, it is easy enough to run it through a mesh strainer before freezing.
Wow! The ice cream is amazing! I’ve been wanting to make ice cream all summer…you pushed me over the edge. Thanks for the inspiration.
I love these Pics. This Blog is Awesome!
Sorry to be redundant, but I, too, think these photos are amazing. (Ice cream looks great, too.) Looking forward to seeing you soon!
The ice cream recipe sounds yummy, gonna have to give it a try.
This sounds like the perfect summer treat! I can’t believe what a huge difference the berries make, but then again, why wouldn’t it! Thanks for the recipe!
I would LOVE to make this but *sigh*, I don’t have an ice cream maker.
Have I told you how much I love your blog? You are incredible! These pictures are beautiful and this recipe is fabulous. LOVE IT!
xo
how funny, these have ended up in my Bewise Ranch CSA the last few weeks, I did a double take as I know you’re up north, but I guess valley center isnt that far from you! I didnt get any further than popping them in my mouth directly out of the packet!!
Dang. I have resisted getting an ice cream maker (because I would use it. all the time.) …but this is tempting.
Simple adore blackberries and love the shots as usual.
Blackberry ice cream is delicious. Can’t wait to try this one. Thanks Diane and Tod.
Sorry I missed this post. Lovely as usual and great shots…
The blackberries have been so incredibly sweet lately, the best I’ve ever tasted. Your blackberry ice cream recipe sounds heavenly. I can’t wait to try it.
The photo of the family is beautiful. I hope you sent them a copy!
A beautiful post, a lovely family, and I’m making the ice cream tonight for my grandson.
Gorgeous photos! And what a perfect recipe for summer..blackberries and ice cream – nothing better!
Happy July 4th! xx
Just found your blog and so happy I did. Really enjoying looking around.
Gorgeous photos as always! The kids in the photos are precious too. What a beautiful family life!!! And the recipe looks scrumptious!! Whole Foods + YOU = MAGIC!
A lovely post featuring such a wonderful family.
I’ll be making this ice cream next weekend as a surprise for Eric. He adores blackberries. We planted some this year, so I’m hoping for berries next season. Thanks for a beautiful post!
Somehow little berries call me back to some kind of ancestral desire of collection. I just can’t stop buying them. Surely enough, collecting them for real is another story… Oh that ice-cream look soooo good!
I sooo want a scoop of this ice cream like now:) Your photography is bananas! I was just staring at some beautiful blackberries at a Publix here on South Beach wondering what I could make with them. What great timing for this post. I will most definitely be churning this up to accompany my “happy birthday to me” cupcake next week.
I just picked up some Stehly blackberries from Whole Foods yesterday. They are huge and they are divine. I often take ice cream recipes and make frozen pops with them. I think I’ll try that with this one. Thanks!
Fantastic!
Beautiful post!! How exciting to be able to experience and photograph life on a working farm! The beauty of your pictures made me feel like I was there. Awesome!! Thank you!
Those blackberries sound as though they would be best enjoyed straight from the bush. But really, how can you resist making ice cream out of them? The picture of the flying Stehly child is so precious. I hadn’t heard about that conference in Boston. I’ll have to check that out for next year.
I love your shots of the raspberrries and blackberries but I think I love the shots of the family more. 🙂 The one with the dad and son in the air, makes me think of my dad!
great story and photo! Looking forward to seeing you this week!
I Love everything about this. Happy 4th of July!
What a great summer recipe. The story makes it sound even more delicious!
The color of that ice cream is gorgeous. What a happy post!
Looks absolutely delicious! I wish we had fresh blackberries here in Florida.
Mmm, that’s beautiful 🙂 I love blackberries and can’t wait to get my hands on some fresh ones. I love how red/pink your ice cream is. Gorgeous!
I was wondering why you picked some green berries, but I’m assuming it was just for the aesthetic appeal in the photographs, right?
P.S. I’m totally jealous. In my area, we’ve probably got another good month before the blackberries are ready.
Correct. Plus to show the full lifespan of the blackberries. They are so beautiful in every stage, it is a shame not to recognize each stage.
As I’m reading your post, I’m thinking to myself (of course), I’d love to try one of these blackberries. Then I thought a moment longer and remembered, “Didn’t I just buy some blackberries at Whole Foods yesterday?” I just grabbed the container – Stehly Farms! So lovely to have a story to go along with enjoying these berries. I have to agree, they are terrific!
Ack! These are the most beautiful photos I think you guys have ever posted on your blog. I LOVE blackberries and raspberries. I need to mail order some plants for next years garden!
The ice cream recipe looks delish and the photography is just gorgeous. The delicate raspberries are just popping off the page and make me want to go eat some raspberries & blackberries.
And the pics of the happy family, their kids, it all looks so lovely. Great job capturing it all you two!
🙂
blackberries and ice cream – that’s just sunshine on a spoon. happy 4th of july guys!