National Ice Cream Day!

July is National Ice Cream Month, designated by President Reagan in 1984. Sunday (how fitting), July 19th is National Ice Cream Day! A celebration is in order: make mine a hot fudge sundae with lots of hot fudge and whipped cream, a maraschino cherry, and no nuts, thank you.

So, in celebration of this wonderful holiday, a few brief comments on ice cream and some really good recipes for home made ice cream:

According to Wikipedia, frozen treats have been around for centuries. Ice cream, however, seems to have first appeared in the 18th century in England and in the Colonies. Making early ice creams seemed to be a pretty laborious process, due to the complexities of obtaining sufficient ice. Therefore, it was served only on very special occasions. It is believed that Dolly Madison served ice cream at her husband’s inauguration.

Ice cream didn’t take off until the nineteenth century, when improved ice cream making techniques, such as the hand-cranked ice cream freezer, were introduced. Ice cream reached its world-wide popularity with the advent of refrigeration.

Ice cream has played a vital role in the dietary history of my family for decades. My mother has been most central to this history, as a serious ice cream addict. Hot fudge sundaes were allowable meal substitutions in my family. My mother possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the location of every ice cream shop in South Florida, and will frequently substitute a hot fudge sundae for a more traditional meal. I frequented many ice cream parlors in my youth. Each of the stores, of course, had their own unique flavors and presentations, from Jaxson’s Kitchen Sink (dozens of scoops of ice cream with a bunch of toppings and a heap of whipped cream, served in an actual kitchen sink) to Carvel’s flagship dessert, Fudgie the Whale (check him out- he’s a South Florida icon).

My early attempts at home-churned ice cream have been less-than-stellar. The finished product has been a disappointment: slightly watery, grainy, not-so-flavorful. It seemed like a whole lot of work for not much.

In my older age, though, as a brand new retro farm wife, I have decided to give it another go. It seems like the right thing to do at the farmhouse in the summer: churn ice cream. Making ice cream seems to go along with growing a garden, putting up preserves, and raising chickens.

I started all over with a brand-new Rival ice cream maker, purchased at WalMart for about 20 bucks. The first attempt was a test run, using a prepared cherry vanilla mix and whole milk. Much better than I have ever made before, but nothing like I wanted. So I headed back to the cookbooks and the Internet.

Ice cream generally comes in two varieties: Philadelphia-style, which is made from milk and cream and sugar and no eggs, and French or custard style, which contains eggs. I opted to try the latter, as it is supposed to produce a smoother, richer dessert, as the eggs emulsify the mixture and make it very smooth.

I learned a few tips about ice cream making:

- ­ Be careful about the rock salt and ice mixture, as too cold produces a bad result, and too warm won’t freeze right
- Any milk or cream should be heated to just below boiling point, because it produces a smoother product
- Always add salt, to counter the sweetness of the sugar
- Cook the ice cream mixture down for a few hours in the refrigerator before freezing to produce a better ice cream

Success! I churned the ice cream for around forty minutes, and pulled out the dasher (the part of the churn that does the mixing) to reveal a beautiful, smooth, pale yellow concoction. We all fought over licking the beater! I let the ice cream ripen in the freezer for a couple of hours, and we enjoyed the result with waffle cones.

Here’s the recipe that I pulled off www.allrecipes.com for Old Fashioned Vanilla Frozen Custard and used for my masterpiece. I highly recommend it. The booklet that comes with the ice cream freezer has some great recipes, too. I gleaned the ice cream making tips from Cookwise, by Shirley Corriher, which has some great recipes and really good food science information. I love the book.

Note: instead of whipping the cream and adding it to the partially frozen mixture, I just went ahead and added it to the cooked mixture. I froze the mixture in the ice cream churn, of course, not the freezer.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup half-and-half cream
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS
In a heavy saucepan, combine first three ingredients. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. Cool. Pour into chilled ice cube trays without dividers or a shallow pan. Freeze to a mush (do not freeze hard). Whip cream; add vanilla and salt. Fold into partially frozen mixture. Return to trays or pan and freeze.

Have a good holiday, and let me know how your ice cream comes out!