Purple Ice Cream

My daughter's favorite color is purple, and for her fourth birthday she asked me to make her purple birthday cake and purple ice cream. To make something that was both purple and delicious, I adapted a french vanilla ice cream recipe from Ben & Jerry's. The results are rich, creamy, and very purple.

Desserts

Prep: 30 min
Chill: 4 hours
Total: 4 hours 30 min
Yields 1 quart

3 large eggs
In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
¾ cup sugar
With the hand mixer running on low speed, slowly add sugar, mixing continuously to incorporate. Once fully added, increase speed to high and mix until creamy, about 1 minute.
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole or 2% milk
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
Add cream, milk, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute.
1 to 5 drops purple soft gel paste food coloring (available on Amazon)
Add 1 drop of purple food coloring to the bowl and beat to combine. Add additional drops until you reach the desired tone. We used three drops to get the dark purple ice cream pictured above and one drop for the light.
Transfer to an ice cream maker and mix according to the manufacturer's instructions, about 20 to 30 minutes.
3 tablespoons purple sprinkles
If desired, add purple sprinkles to ice cream during the last two minutes of mixing in the ice cream maker.
Once complete, transfer ice cream to a freezer safe bowl and cover surface tightly with plastic wrap to prevent ice crystals from forming. Freeze for about four hours before serving. Ice cream will keep for two to four weeks.

From MakeBetterFood.com. Feb 22, 2012. (makebetterfood.com/recipes/purple-ice-cream/). Adapted from Cohen, Ben and Greenfield, Jerry. Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book. (Workman Publishing Group, NY. 1987.) p. 35.