Homemade Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Maker
Here is a way to make fresh homemade ice cream by hand in much
less time than it normally takes with a home ice cream maker.
The freezing time for the ice cream is much faster because we freeze
each serving in its own batch of ice and salt. Another factor in
freezing it so quickly is that our serving is in a thin, flat, container,
so the ice and salt can contact more of the ice cream at once.
We also use a recipe that is particularly delicious.
What you need
-
½ cup sugar
-
¼ teaspoon salt
-
1 cup milk
-
3 beaten egg yolks
-
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
-
2 cups chilled whipping cream
-
Optional:
2 cups fresh strawberries and extra ½ cup sugar
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The cooking phase can be done a day or two ahead of time, so no one has
to wait for the really fun part.
Set out all of the ingredients so everything is easily at hand.
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Put the sugar, salt, and milk into the top pan of a double boiler. The
water in the bottom part of the double boiler will boil, and the temperature
will never rise above the boiling point of water. This ensures that we
don't overcook the mixture, even if we get distracted.
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Stir the 3 beaten egg yolks into the milk and sugar.
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Cook the mixture over boiling water until you can see bubbles forming
around the edges of the mixture.
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The mixture is done when it is somewhat thick, and coats the spoon.
Let the mixture cool to room temperature.
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When the custard has cooled, stir in the vanilla extract and the heavy whipping
cream.
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The fun part is about to begin. This is where having a bunch of kids to
help is really nice.
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Pour a cup of the ice cream mixture into a plastic zip-lock sandwich bag.
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Zip the bag closed, and put it into another sandwich bag for safety, and
zip that one closed as well.
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Fill a gallon size food storage zip-lock bag about one third full of
ice cubes. Add a cup of salt (we used rock salt, but any kind will do).
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Zip the large bag closed, and wrap it in a towel to keep fingers from
getting too cold.
Make a bag for everyone (this recipe will make enough for three or four
servings, and you can double or quadruple the recipe if you are having
a party).
Now have each person squish the little bag around in the salt and ice,
making sure that the ice contacts the little bag as much as possible,
and that the little bag gets lots of kneading, to keep the ice crystals
tiny, so the ice cream is very smooth.
The kneading stage takes 10 minutes. You can let the ice cream sit in
the ice for another 5 minutes if you like harder ice cream, although
continuing to knead it for the extra 5 minutes is also OK to do if you're
having fun.
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You will know the ice cream is done by feeling the mixture become a paste
instead of a liquid. When you take the little bag out of the ice, wipe
off the salt water, and then remove the outer bag carefully, so you don't
get salt in the ice cream. The little bag will stand up in the bowl,
because it is a frozen paste.
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You can spoon the ice cream into a bowl if you like, or just eat it out
of the bag.
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If you like strawberry ice cream, mash 2 cups of strawberries with a half cup
of sugar, and add a half cup to each small bag before closing it up and
putting it in the ice.
The result is an amazingly delicious homemade ice cream.
How does it do that?
For ice to melt, it has to get heat from something. In our ice cream
project, it gets the heat from the ice cream mixture (and from your
hands, which is why they get cold while holding the bag). When the ice
is melting, it is at 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).
When ice is melting, the surface of the ice is wet. At the surface,
there is solid ice on one side, and liquid water on the other. The
surface is exactly at the freezing point. This means that some water
molecules are leaving the ice and moving into the water, but it also
means that some liquid water is refreezing onto the ice. We say that
the system is in equilibrium when the rate of melting is equal to the
rate of freezing, and this happens at 0 degrees Celsius.
At equilibrium, the heat lost by the water as it freezes is equal to
the heat gained by the ice as it melts.
Because plain ice can only barely cool something to the freezing point
of water, we will need to do something to make it much colder than that,
since our ice cream mixture freezes at a lower temperature than water.
The ice cream freezes because the salt and the ice mix to make a substance
with a lower freezing point than ice alone. This means that the ice and
salt mixture must get even more heat from somewhere in order to melt.
Salty water freezes at a lower temperature than plain water. But the
ice is made of plain water, so it melts at 0 degrees Celsius. Since the
ice keeps melting, but the water no longer freezes (because there is only
salt water, which doesn't freeze at 0 degrees), the temperature goes down.
The heat gained by the ice as it melts is no longer offset by the heat
given up by freezing water (since the water is no longer freezing back
onto the ice). The heat gain has to come from somewhere else. It comes
from the ice cream and your hands.
The sodium and chlorine in the salt split apart into charged ions, and
these ions attract water molecules to form weak chemical bonds.
The resulting compound has a freezing point of -21.1 degrees Celsius
(-5.98 degrees Fahrenheit). This is 21.1 degrees colder than ice
(37.98 degrees Fahrenheit colder than ice).
When people put salt on the ice on a sidewalk or a road, the ice mixes
with the salt, and the mixture of the two solids (ice and salt) produces
a liquid, but the sidewalk actually gets colder than it was before.
If we add a different chemical to the ice, such as calcium chloride, we
can get an even lower temperature (-29 degrees Celsius, or -20 degrees
Fahrenheit).
More
ice cream recipes at
simplyrecipes.com.
Next:
Aerodynamics -- The Bernouli Ball
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