Cool Treats

This past weekend, we invited our Sunday School class over for homemade ice cream.  Since we're still on the new-side many of them had never been to our house and we thought a get together was a good way to have people see where we live.  As well as a good excuse to make homemade ice cream.

We made three batches of our favorite vanilla ice cream recipe.  Toward the end of one batch we mixed in crushed Oreo cookies.  At the end of another batch, some of our crushed strawberries.  The third we left plain vanilla.  I mixed the batches the day before and stored them in the fridge in three two-quart glass jars.

 

Ice cream mixture ready to be turned and our ice cream maker (and turner's feet).

The morning of the get together, Jamey turned the ice cream.  And turned.  And turned.  And turned some more.  We transferred the finished 3 gallons of ice cream to large containers and let them chill in the freezer for about 6 hours before serving.  This is, by far, the best method to sharing homemade ice cream that we've tried.  While it's fun to have your guests turn the ice cream with you, freshly turned ice cream is often very soft and on a hot day like we had (and have been having), that soft ice cream quickly transforms into ice cream soup.  Doing it ahead of time ensures that the ice cream has had a chance to set up nice and firm and you get to decide when to eat it instead of letting the ice cream dictate your plans.  Sorry I don't have more pictures.  We were all pretty busy eating and visiting.  And trying not to get hit with balls the kids were playing with.  It was a  good time.

 Strawberry ice cream ready for the freezer to set up.

One of the perks of hosting a get together like this is the leftovers.  The night after, for dinner, we had waffles with homemade ice cream- a very special and infrequent treat at our house.

If you're in the mood for a cool treat, don't forget to check out these recipes for blueberry, strawberry and peach frozen yogurt and chocolate velvet ice cream- more of our favorites.  We seem to have a lot of favorites when it comes to ice cream and frozen yogurt.  Hm.





Old-Fashioned Vanilla Ice Cream (from Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt by Mable and Gar Hoffman)
While we love this recipe, we aren't as smitten with some of the other recipes we've tried in this book. Just so you know.

1 1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cups whole milk
2 egg yolks
5 ounces evaporated milk
1 cup whipping cream
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch and salt.  Stir in milk.  Stir over medium heat.  Simmer 1 minute over low heat; set aside.  In a small bowl, lightly beat egg yolks.  Stir about 1 cup milk mixture into egg yolks.  Stirring constantly, pour egg-yolk mixture into remaining milk mixture.  Cook and stir over low heat for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened (ours never really thickens and it always turns out okay).  Add evaporated milk, whipping cream and vanilla.  Cool to room temperature.  Pour into ice cream canister (or refrigerate until ready to use).  Freeze in ice cream maker per manufacturer's instructions.