Store-bought ice cream can be quite expensive, as well as full of unexpected, unexplained ingredients. Still, we usually go out to buy ice cream – few realize that it can be made at home, quickly, easily, and inexpensively, in under ten minutes. What follows is a recipe for your own small amount of homemade ice cream, with an explanation of how it works.
Ingredients:
– A quarter teaspoon of vanilla
– Six tablespoons of rock salt
– One tablespoon of sugar
– Half a cup of milk or cream
– Two trays of ice cubes
You’ll also need:
– A pint-sized plastic food-storage bag (like a ziploc bag)
– A gallon-sized bag of the same sort
What to do:
Fill the smaller of the two bags with the milk, vanilla, and sugar. Seal it tightly and carefully, so nothing leaks. Then, fill the larger of the two bags with ice until it’s half full, and add the rock salt. Put the smaller bag inside the larger one, close the larger bag, and shake it all up for about five minutes. When you remove the smaller bag, it should be full of fresh, natural vanilla ice cream.
If you want more than about half a cup of ice cream, multiply the ingredients in the recipe. As long as your bags are large enough and your arms strong enough to shake it up (limit it to one cup for children), you can make batches as large as you like.
How it works:
Ice cream is little more than it’s literal name: frozen cream. In this experiment, it freezes so quickly because the salt helps the surrounding ice to melt without decreasing its temperature. This in turn helps transfer the cold into (or the warmth out of) the bag of milk.
Other ideas:
Plain old vanilla might be boring to some ice-cream makers out there. If you want more exciting flavors, prepare for this, gathering ingredients before making the ice cream. For chunky ice cream, you can add bubblegum pieces, chunks of chocolate (cut up a chocolate bar of any type, or use M&Ms), gummy bears (watch out – they’ll harden), bits of licorice, or any other candy you can think of. To flavor the ice cream itself, you can use chocolate, strawberry, or caramel syrups, or experiment with fruit-flavored drink powder.
Add the extra ingredients before freezing the mix, being sure not to add too much, so the ice cream will still have good consistency. Add only about one part of “extras” to four parts ice cream.
This would be a great activity for a child’s birthday party, although it might create some mess and require supervision. Imagine a buffet of different flavor and candy options, set out in cups with spoons, allowing each child to create and name his or her own personal ice cream flavor! It would go great next to each birthday cake.
