In this recipe, I show how to include fruits in your ice cream flavors. Iʼll demonstrate these techniques using primarily wild blueberries. But you can experiment with any local fruit you might be familiar with. But first, let’s dive into our most plentiful wild berry in Southeast Alaska.

In Southeast Alaska, we pick three species of wild dark berries, and refer to all of them as blueberries. Black huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum), oval-leafed blueberry (v. Ovalifolium), and Alaskan blueberry (v. Alaskensis Howell) all crowd the understory of our old-growth forests. Often intertwined in their habitat, they make identification difficult for the average forager. Most people just harvest them all at once, given their similar taste profiles, appearances, and common use in the home kitchen.

Domesticated blueberries are often cited for their antioxidant properties, receiving the classification of a “miracle fruit.” The chemicals present in farmed blueberries are even more highly concentrated in Southeast Alaska’s wild blueberries. The darker the fruit, the more potent is its oxygen radical capacity (ORAC) value, giving greater health benefits.

Traditionally, blueberries were an important food source for the Lingít People. Before contact with Europeans, berries were the main source of sugar. Like salmon streams, highly productive berry patches were considered the property of individual clans. Women would pick the berries, using a small spruce root basket to hold their harvest. Berries were eaten fresh or prepared for winter use with oil, or cooked into cakes for long-term storage.

Blueberries are one of the first plants to flower in our forests. The blossoms look like tiny white bells, hanging down from delicate branches. Their emergence coincides with the return of hummingbirds to Alaska. One often sees the tiny manic birds flitting among the blueberry branches, from bloom to bloom. The bushes are not always a welcome sight in the fall, as they can create an impenetrable wall of tangles, blocking hunters from following an easy path to pursue a deer or bear.

Southeast Alaska contains a wide variety of wild berries. Some of the tastier ones include was'x'aan tléicGu, salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis), shákw, wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca), dáxw, lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), kaxwéiyx, highbush cranberry (Vibornum trilobum), néx’w, cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus), ch'eeyx', thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus), tleikatánk, red huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium) and neigóon, nagoonberry (Rubus arcticus).

Our family’s favorite berry is the nagoonberry. I first discovered our nagoonberry patch during my first few days in Juneau, in 1995. I was working along the same trail every day, and wondered about the red berries that grew haphazardly along the trail. Consulting a native plants guide, I discovered they were the rare nagoonberry. Later that evening, without telling my co-workers, I returned and found a nearby patch full of berries.

Nagoonberries grow in wet meadows, usually those that were once tidal flats and have since risen. The land in much of Southeast Alaska is actually rebounding, due to its past coverage from continental glaciers. As the weight of the glaciers has receded, the land has bounced back and continues to rise, in a geologic process known as isostatic rebound. As the land rises, ecosystems change. In the 30 years that we’ve been picking the same nagoonberry patch, we’ve seen the berries replaced as the ground dries out and the forest advances.

Nagoonberries are so rare in Southeast Alaska that once you find a patch, you don’t reveal its location to anyone. One slip of the tongue and someone will clear your patch before you can harvest it. I wouldn’t even tell my elder friend Kaayistaan Marie Olsen the location of our patch (she never forgave me but I try to make up for it by taking nagoonberry sauce and ice cream to her in the Sitka Pioneer Home).

When you first enter a patch, the rich floral scent of the berries fills your nostrils. Usually hiding under a taller plant, the berry looks like an upside-down raspberry and grows like a strawberry. Leaning over to pick the sparse berries can make your back scream. When the picking is good, you can squat on your haunches and pick away at the berries that surround you. More often than not, a trip to find the elusive berry will result in half-filled berry buckets and the need for a lower-back massage.

From time to time, I harvest enough nagoons to make a small batch of ice cream (after filling our family quota for nagoonberry sauce - perfect on pancakes or brownie sundaes). Knowing that some locals object to commercializing the berry, I would label the ice cream “Secret Berry.” The opportunity to share this rare berry’s complex flavor outweighed the risk of offending the berry’s protectors. And the ice cream name gave me plausible deniability.

The elusive neigóon

This ice cream recipe demonstrates how to use fruit in ice cream by binding water in fruit with sugar. If you don’t find a way to bind up the sugar, you will get chunks of frozen berries in your ice cream. Some fruits are adapted to roasting in an oven, such as strawberries. Others with high water contents and an outer membrane like blueberries are best cooked down on the stove.

This recipe can easily be adapted to berries or fruits grown in your area. Simply add a little more sugar if you are using a tart berry like a cranberry, or a little less for a sweeter one, like a strawberry.

You can make this recipe without the chocolate and it will still be very tasty. The magic shell is wonderful any time you want to add chocolate chips to an ice cream. If you use straight chocolate chips, the chips will turn hard and waxy due to the temperature of the ice cream. The magic shell makes small chips of ice cream that melt delicately when they hit your tongue.

Wild Blueberry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Recipe

ICE CREAM BASE

INGREDIENTS

• 2 c granulated sugar

• 2 ½ c wild blueberries

• 2 c cream

• 1 c milk

• 1 t lemon juice

• 1 t red wine vinegar

• ½ vanilla extract

• 1/2 t kosher salt

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Combine berries and sugar in medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat.

2. Cook berries and sugar, stirring often, until reduced by ½, roughly 2 cups

3. Remove from heat, and allow to cool slightly. Add water and ice to large bowl to create ice bath.

4. In mixing bowl, add cream and milk and stir to combine. Add cooked berries and sugar. Blend with immersion blender or in blender until mixture is smooth.

5. Strain mixture through fine-mesh strainer into medium bowl set in ice bath.

6. Add vinegar, vanilla, and salt and stir to combine.

7. Fully cool in refrigerator to 40F.

MAGIC SHELL (FOR CHOCOLATE CHIPS)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup high quality chocolate chips (preferably bittersweet or 60% cacao)

• ¼ cup neutral oil (safflower or avocado work fine)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Combine chocolate chips with oil in microwave safe container.

2. Heat for 2 minutes at 50% power, checking at 1 minute.

3. When chips have melted, whisk to combine.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

1. Add ice cream mix to ice cream maker and churn per machineʼs instructions

2. When ice cream is finished, drizzle magic shell into ice cream while ice cream churns.

3. Magic shell will solidify when it contacts ice cream.

4. Chop shell with a spoon to make “chips” in the ice cream.

5. Freeze ice cream overnight in freezer.

Video Tutorial

Making magic shell in the kitchen