Ice cream

Philadelphia-style ice cream No eggs and no cooking beyond warming the sugar until it dissolves: just cream, milk, sugar and flavor. That makes it the quickest base here and the best showcase for delicate flavors, since nothing stands between you and fresh vanilla, peak strawberries or mint leaves steeped in the cream. Because it is never cooked, the flavors come through bright and distinct. The trade-off is texture: without yolks to emulsify the base, it churns up a little icier than custard. Make it when the fruit is good and you want the flavor bright rather than rich.