Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

One of our prized Christmas gifts from Alex's folks is our electric ice cream maker. It's tradition to make homemade vanilla ice cream for birthdays around our neck of the woods (even if that means making it at 11 pm the night before). You'll be surprised by how easy it really is, it's just time consuming. I've had a few friends ask me for the recipe, so here it is girlfriends! Oh and BTW, we don't skimp on the calories when it comes to homemade ice cream.

Ingredients for my 4 quart maker:

2 cups milk (I use whole organic milk)

1 3/4 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon table salt

2 cups of half & half

1 Tablespoon of vanilla

4 cups of whipping cream

3 cups of ROCK salt

Lots of ice

Add the two cups of milk into large saucepan. Put your burner on between low and medium. Scald milk until bubbles form around edge of pan. Keep an eye on milk while preparing the rest of the ingredients. It takes a bit but when it's ready, it's ready quickly.

Once milk is scalded, remove pan from heat. Add sugar and salt. Stir until dissolved. Stir in half and half, vanilla extract & whipping cream. Cover & refrigerate 30 minutes. Freeze.

Freezing Process: I'll take more pictures next time.

• Pour chilled ice cream mixture into ice cream can (see my can in picture?). Fill can 3/4 full (it will expand).
• Insert dasher (see the white thing-ma-jig in picture?), place cover on ice cream can.
• Place filled can in ice cream bucket.
• Place motor over can.
• Layer an inch of ice, then sprinkle 1/4 cup of ROCK salt. Alternate layers of ice and rock salt to top of can.
• Place ice cream bucket into another bucket, cooler, sink (to catch all the melted water as the ice will melt as the machine churns)
• Turn on machine (I often put mine in the garage or bathroom because it is so loud especially at 11 pm).
• Churn 20-40 minutes.
• Scrape ice cream mixture from can and dasher into a freezer container. I'm not a huge Tupperware fan (because of my thriftiness), but love this container for my ice cream.
• Place ice cream in freezer.
• My helper from beginning to end gets to lick the dasher and scrape the can.

For strawberry ice cream: Add 4 cups of pureed strawberries to chilled mixture prior to freezing. I don't always have strawberries, but I do have lots of strawberry freezer jam. I've added 12 oz of strawberry jam before.

For Peach ice cream: Add 4 cups of peaches to chilled mixture prior to freezing.

Add any type of fruit to chilled mixture prior to freezing: just add 4 cups with the exception of bananas only add 3 cups. I have also done marionberry, blackberry, raspberries without seeds.

Well try these, and then I'll post you my Rocky Road recipe.

I'm so looking foward to summer,

Dee

PS Oh, another freezing option would be to see my friend Lee Ann