The next time you want to eat an ice cream, consider preparing it yourself instead of buying it. Making ice cream is easy, as well as being a great project to try it with children. This article contains different methods to prepare an ice cream, one of which requires the use of your kitchen and tools.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 5 hours, 50 minutes (active cooking time: 15 minutes)
Total time: 6 hours
How to make ice cream without the special machine
1
Prepare a base of custard with your favorite extra ingredients. If you do not have an ice cream machine, you can freeze the ice cream in the freezer. Starting with an ice cream based on pastry cream will contribute to the final result have a smooth and creamy texture. However, if you prefer to use a cream base, the ice cream will most likely become very solid: it will look more ice than cream.
Use the freezer
1
Freeze the ice cream in the freezer. Put it in a deep bowl suitable for the freezer and put it there. Every 45 minutes, open the freezer and stir the ice cream vigorously. In this way, it will freeze slowly until it adopts a creamy and smooth texture instead of freezing like a solid block of ice. Continue to stir the ice cream every 45 minutes until it has completely frozen. This process will take from 4 to 5 hours.
If you like the softest ice cream, you will be able to consume it as soon as it adopts the texture of your preference.
To make an ice cream of a more traditional style, it freezes the ice cream all night after the last time of stirring it. The next day, it will have a texture similar to commercial ice cream.
Use a freezer bag
1
Put the pastry cream base in a 1-quart (1/4 gallon) bag. Make sure it is a sturdy bag and have a good zipper.
2
Fill a larger bag with ice and salt. Take about two quarts of ice (crushed if possible) and put them in a 4 liter (1 gallon) bag with rock salt (also called coarse salt). Ideally, the 4-liter bag (1 gallon) should be filled almost halfway with the ice-salt mixture.
3
Put the one-liter (1/4 gallon) airtight bag into the larger bag. Make sure both are sealed. Do not allow the contents to mix. If the bags are not sealed enough, seal the top of both to make sure they do not open while you shake them.
To do this method, you can use two cans instead of two bags for the freezer. Get cans of coffee of different sizes and fill the smaller one with the ice cream base. Fill the larger can with ice and salt, then place the smaller one inside. Make sure that the covers of both cans are tightly closed.
4
Shake it. Shake, massage and gently shake the bags for about fifteen to twenty minutes. During this period, the contents of the one-liter bag will begin to take the texture of solid ice cream. It will be important that you mix the contents of the inner bag, but do not do it in a very aggressive way, but the inner bag could break or cut into the ice. You can avoid it if you use double bags.
If your hands get too cold, use a towel or an old T-shirt to hold the bags while massaging them; The bags will be quite cold and may be slippery due to accumulated condensation.
If you can not get a towel or a similar cloth, consider using gloves to massage while you grab the top seal.
5
Remove the finished ice cream from the sandwich bag and serve.