Making ice cream

Tammy had a Homemade Gourmet vanilla ice cream mix.  I decided I wanted to try using it to make homemade ice cream - something I have never done before.  The problem was that I needed a four quart ice cream maker.  Tammy's little 'make a small bowl of ice cream' maker wouldn't cut it.

Then I remember how our neighbor in Minot would bring homemade ice cream over for our New years get-togethers.  I borrowed their ice cream maker on Saturday.  Saturday night after a full day of cleaning the house I decided to make ice cream.

One problem.  I had only bought one bag of ice and the mix said I needed two bags.  Also the mix only had directions to prepare the ice cream mixture for the maker.  Once we turned on the ice cream maker we were on our own.  Tammy researched recipes on the internet on how to make ice cream the old fashioned way and they said I needed 15 lbs of ice (or three bags).  The third bag was for "ripening" the ice cream.  "Ripening" ice cream means "hardening" the ice cream after it has been made.

*Argh*

Did I need that third bag for to "ripen" the ice cream?

It was after 9 pm but out into the cold and snow I went.  It was snowing heavy by now.  That didn't seem to deter the traffic on a Saturday night as there were plenty of cars out.

I decided to buy two more bags of ice to have three bags totals.  Better to be safe than sorry.

After I got home I found that my brother had drank the gallon of whole milk the recipe called for.  He normally drinks skim milk, and he was there when I bought the gallon of whole milk, but never realized it when he drank the whole milk.


*Argh!*

I decided to use the skim milk.  I didn't feel like going back out into the cold and snow and drive again on slippery streets across town.

I mixed the mixture.  I placed the mixture into the maker's can.  I crushed the ice with a large hammer to make the ice smaller.  I plugged in the ice cream maker and then spread the ice in the bucket around the can mixing in rock salt ever so often to melt the ice.

One churns the ice cream for about twenty minutes and I used two bags (10 lbs) of ice during this time.  At the end of the twenty minutes I had a mixture of ice and cold water in the bucket around the can.  I think the third bag is more useful if making the ice cream on a warm day.  The remaining ice and cold water in the bucket was enough to harden the ice cream.  If one wants it harder, place it in the freezer.  The next day after storing the ice cream overnight the ice cream was rock hard.

The ice cream turned out fine.  My brother likes it.  Tammy doesn't.  This was the first time she tasted homemade ice cream and it is not to her liking.

Here is a short video of the ice cream maker in action:  (45 seconds long)

http://youtu.be/-VOCuuYANlk