Life was changed forever when ice cream was invented. Have you landed a huge deal or just enjoyed a fabulous meal? A scoop of ice cream makes a great day… AWESOME! Have a horrible fight with your boyfriend or get a bad grade? Treat yourself to a big bowl of ice cream and world looks a hellava lot better. It rivals electricity. Ok, not really… but maybe… just a little.
How to Make Ice Cream without a machine
When our kids where in 4th grade, they made this incredibly simple vanilla ice cream with their science teacher. It was loads of fun, takes 3 ingredients you probably have in your kitchen and a couple of ziplocks.
- Put 1 cup whole milk in a small ziplock bag with 1/4 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla
- In a gallon ziplock bag, put 5 cups ice and 4 tablespoons coarse salt or rock salt.
- Put the small bag into the large bag with the ice, seal the large bag and shake until frozen and has the consistency of soft serve ice cream.
Low Carb (Keto) Easy Ice Cream Variation
Low Carb/Keto Ice Cream – Replace milk with heavy cream or use 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup cream. Use your favorite low carb sweetener like stevia or Truvia in place of sugar.
Easy Ice Cream Flavors you gotta try!
Here’s a list of 12 Outrageously Delicious Easy Ice Cream Flavors and combinations to play around with if you want to make your own. Simply add these flavorings to the above no churn Easy Ice Cream recipe in a bag for these variation below. Or if you want to break out your ice cream maker, try the vanilla ice cream recipe I adapted from Glissen’s Professional Cooking 9th edition at the bottom.
- Ginger Orange – 1-2 drops orange extract, the zest of 1 large orange and 1/2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger
- Chocolate Bourbon – 2 teaspoons cocoa powder and 1 tablespoon bourbon
- Lucky Charms – Either add 1/2 cup lucky charms in the beginning to the milk/cream mixture or stir it in at the end.
- Salted Vanilla – An additional 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla and top with 1/2 teaspoon finishing salt like Maldon
- Black Pepper & Honey – Replace sugar with 1/4 cup honey and add 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
- Rose – 1/4 teaspoon rose water
- Pineapple Basil – 1/4 cup crushed pineapple and 3 fresh basil leaves chopped finely. Because of the high acidity of the pineapple after shaking the bag for 5 minutes, place it in the freezer for up to 1 hour, agitating it every 15 minutes until desired consistency.
- Strawberry Jalapeño – 1-2 tablespoons no sugar strawberry jam and 2 teaspoons chopped jalapeño (veins and seeds removed)
- Pumpkin Spice – 2 tablespoons canned pumpkin and/or 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice blend
- Lemon Mint – 1-2 drops lemon extract, the zest of 1 lemon and 3 mint leaves finely chopped
- Cardamon and Sweet Cream – use cream instead of milk in the above recipe and 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon
- Cherry Almond – 1-2 drops almond extract and 1-2 tablespoon cherry preserves (optional: 1 rounded tablespoon chopped bing cherries or maraschino cherries)
Meet Cordell Kersey!
Last week Firefly Grill’s Event Coordinator, Katie Koester, introduced me to Cordell Kersey who’s in charge of their pastry creations. We had a great chat. Shy and unassuming, Cordell is charming and imaginative. He started working at the Firefly a little over a year ago. One of the things I really admire and respect about the owners and Chef, Kristie & Niall, is the way they promote from within their team.
Cordell started at the Firefly bussing tables and now is able to express his creativity with sugar confections. His favorites include crème brûlée and his new chocolate ice cream. I am a sucker for Firefly’s ice cream. Mainly because they’re all made from scratch in house. No artificial-nothin’ going on here. No sir! The other thing I’m crazy about is all their wildly different ice cream flavors.
Yes, they offer vanilla and chocolate, but there’s nothing ordinary about them or the other flavor combinations! Take Cordell’s chocolate ice cream for instance, (personally I think they should call it Chocolate Marshmallow) it’s a blend of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate and the result is GENIUS!! It really does taste like a smooth creamy milk chocolate marshmallow ice cream. Nom nom nom!
Some of their other popular and fun ice cream flavors have been: Butter Peanut, Pumpkin, Dreamcicle, Espresso, and Berry Lemonade. I couldn’t help myself. I had to throw my 2 cents into the ring and asked Cordell if he might be able to make a Strawberry Jalapeno ice cream. I had a Strawberry Jalapeno margarita last fall and all I could think of was… “oooh, this would make a great ice cream!” He gave me a decidedly unequivocally definite… Maybe. Seriously, though, he liked the idea and said he’d run it past Niall. Sweet!!! If that one doesn’t fly, maybe I can talk him into a Pineapple Basil sorbet. Hmmm???
Have I ever told you how much I LOVE being a food blogger? Well, I do. And never do I enjoy it more than when I get to do a tasting. Oh boy!!! Cordell treated me to an entire flight of ice cream: Berry Lemonade, Espresso, Vanilla, Chocolate, and Blackberry. Then when I thought surely this day can’t get any better, he brings out Firefly’s Brownie Sundae. Oh… My… Goodness!!!!
Dessert Stop!
If you’ve never had their brownie sundae, stop. Stop right now and go get it. Take a friend or two because it’s huge and divine! It’s so good you won’t want to share, but you’ll like yourself better if you do. The brownie is extremely chocolatey but not too rich. It’s caky but the edges are slightly fudge-y. But what I liked most was the paper-thin crust that had a slight crispness to it. That went… Crreikt! when you tap the spoon on it. Then there’s a cloud of whip cream (not too sweet), then a BIG scoop of chocolate ice cream (but you can pick whichever ice cream you want… Katie suggests the Blackberry) and drizzled with chocolate and caramel sauce and THEN they add fresh berries. I could eat this every single day. Not joking.
If you’re in the market for one, I really like mine. It’s a Cuisinart and you can get it on Amazon. Here’s a link if you want to check it out.
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If you need a bigger one, this one looked pretty swanky.
[amazon_link asins=’B00MVWGUYA’ template=’ProductAd’ store=’lakesidetable-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’c08e9d1e-7026-11e8-9152-b119fbfc009e’]
Note:
In order to get that really awesome ice cream consistency and NOT a rock hard frozen delight that threatens to chip your teeth, you need an ice cream stabilizer. I suggest trying Avacream Ice Cream Stabilizer and Trimoline. Ice Cream Stabilizer helps give sugar a more elastic quality as it freezes and Trimoline is an inverted sugar and also helps ice cream keep it’s creamy texture. As much as I would LOOOOOVE to make 5 gallons of ice cream and sorbet every week and eat it all myself, it wouldn’t be prudent. So I found these two ingredients in small quantities (8 oz. & 20 oz.) for a reasonable price on Amazon, especially since such a small amount is called for in the recipes. But hey, if you want the 5 pound bag and the 14 pound tub… go for it! Then call me and I’ll be more than happy to help you eat all your ice cream! ????
[amazon_link asins=’B01FIILGR4′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’lakesidetable-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’1f01f30b-8153-11e8-bb2a-c10ef68948cc’] [amazon_link asins=’B006VD40HE’ template=’ProductAd’ store=’lakesidetable-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’30ff337b-8153-11e8-b8d7-7dd7c0630db3′]
This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
The following recipe I’ve adapted from Professional Cooking 9th Edition by Wayne Glissen. Enjoy!
Vanilla Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 10.9 oz. Heavy Whipping Cream 309g
- 5.5 oz. 2% Milk 156
- 4 oz. Sugar 113g
- 1 Vanilla Bean
- .07 oz. Ice Cream Stabilizer 2g
- 3 oz. Egg Yolks 85g
- .7 oz. Trimoline* 20g
- .07 oz. Fine Salt 2g
Instructions
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1. Cut vanilla bean in 1/2 and scrape out the seeds.
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2. Add vanilla bean husk and scraping to the milk, cream, and sugar.
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3. Heat to 65C (or 149F)
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4. Turn off heat and let cool. Then slowly stream yolks into liquid while whisking constantly.
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5. Let mature overnight in the refrigerator.
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6. Strain base with a fine strainer before spinning in ice cream machine.
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7. Spin in ice cream machine until thick and creamy.
Recipe Notes
Both Ice Cream Stabilizer and Trimoline can be found on Amazon. Check out my post for links. Trimoline is a sweet sugar syrup that stabilizes and helps keep the ice cream from crystalizing. Ice Cream Stabilizer is a guar gum powder that also keeps ice cream smooth and creamy.
Special equipment needed: Ice Cream Maker, Kitchen Scale, Trimoline (invert sugar), & Ice Cream Stabilizer