How to Make Ice Cream

When my mother’s family would get together for summer holidays or even Thanksgiving and Christmas, they would make ice cream. Homemade ice cream is wonderful stuff. The texture of it is more similar to soft serve ice cream unless allowed to freeze, and you can control the ingredients that went into it.

The hardest part about making ice cream is finding an ice cream maker, and maybe having to put up with the noise for 20 to 40 minutes, depending on the model. I recommend getting an electric ice cream maker because making ice cream is too time consuming to have a manual crank, though there are now ice cream maker balls that you roll around.

I have made small amounts of ice cream by using a double bag method, where the ingredients are in a smaller bag placed in a larger bag with ice and mixed up. The same time I made ice cream in small bags, the organizers served us all the ingredients already mixed and then frozen. It wasn’t as good because it was missing an ingredient – air. The stirring action adds air, making it “light and fluffy,” so it tastes better. I do recommend that if you use this bag in bag method to rinse off the inner bag before opening to remove any salt and therefore prevent salt contamination inside. It happened to me.

The process, especially with a machine, is to have crushed ice and rock salt in the bucket around the canister holding the ice cream materials. The ice is to chill the ingredients, and the rock salt helps lower the temperature of the melted ice. I recommend that the churning with a machine take place with the bucket in a large sink, bath tub, or outside, as the ice will melt and make a mess. Also, secure the canister and motor in the bucket before adding ice. Adding ice before doing this will push the canister into difficult angle for securing the motor.

There are two main types of homemade ice cream – custard style, which makes a custard base by lightly cooking eggs, and American style, which is just cream and sugar.

Further reading and recipes:

• AmericanProfile “Ice Cream Crank-Off”
  
• Baking 911.com – Ice Cream
  
• All Recipes.com – Homemade Ice Cream
  
• Ice Cream Recipes.com
  
• Make Ice Cream.com
  
• Ben Watson does offer a recipe for Caramel Apple Gelato on page 148 of his book Cider: Hard and Sweet
  
• Also check your local library for books on ice cream. They will have some!

June is Dairy Month

As I mentioned before, I grew up on a dairy farm, and anyone in the dairy industry knows that June is Dairy Month. I tried googling it to provide more information, but what I got was a list of events and teachings from nutrition, regional councils, and even Crayola has pages to color for this year’s dairy month already up online. As a kid, I was always told that Dairy Month marked the beginning of summer, in which there is always a rise in dairy products consumed, especially cheese and ice cream. Maybe it is a great marketing ploy to kick off the summer by encouraging people to get all the recommended calcium they need via dairy products. Personally, I don’t care – I do love my dairy products.

So for the month of June, I’m going to pay homage to my roots and talk a little bit about dairy products. I’ll try to keep it somewhat pertinent to the Candle Wine Project, and talk about cheese and alcohol pairings. Actually, making cheese is fermentation, so that really isn’t that much of a stretch. However, there will be times where I’m just flat out going to talk about dairy products. Sorry.

I have to make one other note to my readers in regards to cheese – I cannot stand blue cheese or goat’s milk cheese, and sheep’s milk cheeses are hit and miss with me. Thing is, it can be a blind taste test with goat’s milk cheese, and I will know, so it isn’t in my head. Some think I’m crazy with this because they can’t tell the difference, but it is the truth. Goats and sheep smell differently than cows, and that smell is in their wool, meat, and milk, and I just have a hard time dealing with it. Last time someone talked me into trying some, it caught in my throat and I couldn’t get it down for like a good 20 swallows. And the thing is, I want to like it, as I feel I’m missing out on a great deal of cheeses, and I love cheese! I also figure that I will go to Greece some day, and it will be pretty much all goat and sheep’s milk cheeses, and I’ll miss out on some of the wonderful food because I can’t deal with this cheese. The other irony in this is that I want to smell things in wine and find that I struggle, and then I have no problems with cheese and wish I couldn’t.