The Best Homemade Raspberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Ha, ha! Yes, another ice cream recipe! After all it is summer. And this one is heavenly! While it took me three days to put it together, it was well worth it. I made the raspberry sauce one day, the base the very next day, and finally put it all together the third day. Obviously, it doesn't have to take you three days to make.  You could make the raspberry sauce and the base early in the day or the night before to give it time to cool.  In less time than it took for me to make it the raspberry cheesecake ice cream was gone. Sorry about the lousy photo. We ate it all up before I could take the time to set up a nicer picture.Yup, I'll be making this one again.

I've modified it from the original recipe to make it more healthy, replacing the corn syrup with agave nectar and corn starch with tapioca starch or flour. Make sure you use the finer ground tapioca starch and not the pearled tapioca or you will have lumpy ice cream. I also dropped the addition of raspberry extract as I felt it really didn't need it. 

Raspberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Raspberry Sauce

• 3 1/2 - 4 C fresh raspberries, washed and patted dry
• 1/2 C sugar, raw or white
• 1/2 C water
• 1 Tbsp agave nectar
• 1 Tbsp tapioca starch

Stir all ingredients together in a medium sauce pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat and stir. Boil gently for about 2 minutes or the mixture begins to thicken. Remove from the heat and run through a fine sieve to remove the seeds. Cool sauce before using in ice cream.

Ice Cream Base

• 1 C sugar, raw or white
• 2 C heavy cream
• 1 3/4 C whole milk
• 3 Tbsp agave nectar
• pinch of salt
• 3 Tbsp tapioca starch
• 2 Tbsp softened cream cheese

Stir together all ingredients except the cream cheese in a 4 quart saucepan and bring to a boil Continue cooking until mixture begins to thicken. Whisk in cream cheese and pour into ice cream freezer container. Refrigerate overnight or until cold. Freeze according to manufacturer's directions. 

If your ice cream maker has an opening to add ingredients while it is running, add the raspberry sauce to the ice cream when it is nearly frozen, being sure to get the sauce swirled evenly throughout the base. If you do not have this option you may add the raspberry sauce at the very beginning of the freezing process or swirl it into the mixture by hand after it is frozen.