I absolutely adore my Ninja Creami strawberry ice cream recipe. It is packed with stunning strawberry flavour and so easy to make. With that in mind, I had to develop this easy recipe for Ninja Swirl strawberry soft serve. It is similar to my Ninja Creami recipe but with a few tweaks and tips, so let’s get straight into it.
Ingredient notes
I love using summer fresh strawberries for this recipe. Those gorgeously sweet, dark red and yieldingly soft (but not squishy) strawberries that you can get at the height of summer. This feels like the perfect way to celebrate those berries. With that said, many users had success with frozen strawberries in the original recipe as well.
The next ingredient is caster sugar. We will discuss that in the section below because sugar and ice cream (particularly fruit ice cream) requires a bit of finagling in order to get the best result.
To cut through the sweetness, we’re using a small amount of lemon juice and some salt. These work together to bring out the brightness of the strawberries.
Finally, the cream. We are using full fat thickened cream which contains 30-35% fat here in Australia. Overseas, it might be called heavy whipping cream or whipping cream. The fat content is the most important thing: make sure it contains no more than 36% fat. Too much fat in an ice cream can result in a split texture and a greasy mouthfeel.
Tips for your Ninja Swirl
My most important tip is in relation to the Ninja Swirl machine and functions. During my testing, I have realised that the ‘swirl’ function processes mixtures for a lot longer than the ‘scoop’ function. An ice cream processed on ‘swirl’ and then ‘ice cream’ spins for 5 minutes, which is way too long for a mixture that uses cream.
Why? Butter is made by churning cream. If we spin a cream based mixture for too long, the cream will start to split. The result is a greasy mouthfeel after every spoonful of ice cream as the cold butter coats the roof of your mouth.
I recommend all cream based Ninja Swirl ice cream recipes be processed using the scoop function. ‘Scoop’ and ‘ice cream’ processes the mixture for 2 minutes which is much more agreeable for keeping the cream in tact.
Sometimes this means that the ice cream isn’t quite soft enough to easily process into soft serve. You may get an error message when you try to make soft serve. The solution? Allow it to thaw for 5-15 minutes (season dependent).
My other tip (or something to be aware of) is that the machine can’t or won’t process the bottom of the tub. This equates to maybe 1/4 – 1/3 cup ice cream leftover in the bottom of the tub and the piping tubes. Them’s the breaks! I have successfully made a delicious chia pudding with ice cream leftovers. They seem to be a bit icy looking in my experience but I am sure they would taste just as delicious after a bit of thawing.
Sugar and ice cream
Sugar is an important ingredient in ice cream – arguably, the most important ingredient. Why? because sugar lowers the freezing point of an ice cream mixture. In practice, this means that the more sugar you add, the less your mixture is able to set.
This is important because strawberries also contain sugar. How much depends on the season and their ripeness, but they are contributing an unknown amount of sugar in addition to the sugar we are adding.
For an underripe punnet of strawberries, 100g of sugar might be too little. For the ripe strawberries I used, 100g was absolutely perfect. With an excessively sweet variety of strawberry in the height of summer, 100g might be a little too much.
Such is the nature of a fruit based ice cream – you will need to consider your strawberries and your tastes before making an assessment. Personally, I like a reasonably sweet strawberry soft serve that is cut through with a bit of lemon (as in the recipe card). You may or may not need to do a bit of tweaking to achieve your perfect ice cream.
In my personal experience, 125g caster sugar is the absolute most I would add to the fruit based 470ml tub of Ninja Creami. I’d only recommend this if your strawberries are particularly underripe and sour.
If your mixture is soft after freezing or after processing, your mixture likely has too much total sugar. Scale it down by 25-50g for the next batch (if you are using the same type of strawberry). Might I say, the mixture is absolutely delicious melted and makes delightful chia puddings.
More Ninja Swirl recipes
- Ninja Swirl frozen yogurt
- Ninja Swirl vanilla soft serve
- Ninja Swirl açai soft serve (coming soon)
- Ninja Swirl chocolate soft serve (coming soon)
- Ninja Swirl Dole Whip
Ninja Swirl strawberry soft serve
Equipment
- Ninja Swirl machine with 470ml tubs
Ingredients
- 350 g ripe strawberries, chopped (weighed after hulling) (I buy 500g strawberries for this and eat the leftovers)
- 100 g caster sugar
- 20ml (1 tablespoon)* lemon juice, to your tastes
- Pinch of fine salt
- 125 g full fat thickened cream – might be called heavy cream, heavy whipping cream or whipping cream where you live (30-36% fat, see notes)
Instructions
- Add the chopped strawberries, caster sugar, lemon juice and salt to a medium saucepan and place it over a medium heat. Stir regularly and mash the strawberries as you stir to encourage them to release their juices.
- Cook for 5 or so minutes or until the sugar has dissolved, the strawberries are softened and the mixture is bright red. Set aside to cool.
- Give the strawberries one last mash with a fork to break them right down. Pour all of the mixture into your 470ml Ninja Swirl tub with the bottom mechanism closed.
- Place the ice cream in the freezer for 24 hours with the lid off. Leaving the lid off while the mixture freezes can prevent it from forming a hump which can damage your machine.
- When ready to eat, process the ice cream using the SCOOP and ice cream functions. The 'soft serve' functions processes cream based mixtures for too long which starts to split the cream.
- If the mixture looks very soft, place it in the freezer for 30 minutes to firm up before continuing.
- Swap the lids and attach the piping nozzle to your tub. Process into soft serve using the lever. If you get an error message, stop and allow the mixture to thaw for 5-10 minutes before proceeding.
- There will be some slightly icy mixture leftover in the bottom of the tub as there with all soft serves made in the Swirl.
Notes
- See notes in the body of the post.
- Australian thickened cream contains 30-35% milk fat. In other countries, it might be called whipping cream, heavy cream or heavy whipping cream. The most important factor when looking for a cream is to choose one with as close of a fat percentage to 30-36% as possible. A cream that contains too much fat (double cream or clotted cream, for example) is more prone to splitting and creating a greasy, oily result.
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