Friday, June 13, 2008

Five Minute Berry Ice Cream

It's Father's Day this weekend so I have been trying to brainstorm some fun, family activities that we can do together. I stumbled on two ice cream recipes that we can make at home without an ice cream maker. I love the idea of not having to purchase yet another kitchen gadget but still have homemade ice cream so I was all over this!

This evening we tried "Five Minute Ice Cream". It was very easy to make and tasted pretty good! Unfortunately, I don't think we used enough frozen fruit so the end product was a little on the soft side (as you can tell from the picture). If we had more willpower we would have left the ice cream in the freezer a little longer to firm up. Next time I'll make sure to use a full 10 oz bag of frozen fruit which should solve that problem!

The recipe is very simple - just a bag of frozen fruit (we used frozen strawberries and raspberries), a little sugar and some half and half or heavy cream. Pop it in your food processor or blender and voila! Click here for the recipe

On Sunday we are going to try "Speedy Ice Cream" which sounds really interesting - I'm intrigued by the use of baggies and salt and tossing the bags around in order to freeze the cream. I know my girl will absolutely love the hands on (literally) aspect of making that ice cream!

I also noticed our grocery store stocks Morton's Ice Cream Salt so I bought some to see if it makes a difference. The recipe just calls for regular salt but I know when you use an old-fashioned ice cream maker you do need to use rock salt - I think it effects the coldness level or something like that. I'll post a picture of our results on Sunday.

Speaking of berries, I am excited (waayyyyy too excited) to tell you that our blueberries weren't all nibbled off by critters - whoo hoo!! Our little blueberry bush is cranking along and has oh, about a dozen berries on it. Not much, but compared to last year's harvest of three berries, it is a bumper crop.

The strawberry plants are doing quite well, as you can see. I tried a little trick to keep the rabbits away (I can't get myself to put up the ugly chicken wire around the plants yet) so I put a shiny, metallic pinwheel in the ground right next to the plants. My daughter didn't seem to mind giving it up when I told her that I hoped its movement would make the rabbits too nervous to come and nibble on our berries. So far so good!

She picked the first of the harvest all by herself - two the first day, four yesterday and two more today.

She also ate them all by herself. While she wouldn't share with me she did generously give her dad one whole strawberry.

He said they were still a little on the tart side, but she loved them which of course is all that matters.

4 comments:

kmb said...

We made the ice cream in a bag last weekend at a museum function. They used regular salt and it turned out just fine.

It did take quite a bit of shaking, but it was fun!!

Noelle said...

Thanks KMB! Now that I know that it works w/ regular salt I think I'll return the "ice cream salt" and buy more half-and-half instead :-)

Anonymous said...

beautiful photos! She is too cute!

jopal said...

What a cutie! I remember taking my kids picking - they always ate more than they picked!
Can't wait to try the ice cream recipes with my grandkids! We used to make ice cream in coffee cans with rock salt and ice cubes. We used to put the ingredients in small coffee can - put it inside a larger coffee can and fill it with ice/salt. Then we would roll it back and forth on the floor. I think L L Beans sells an ice cream maker ball. Was more fun with the coffee cans!