I’m obsessed with the idea of ice cream this summer.  It seems that every food blog I read has links to really interesting ice cream recipes (like Molly Wizenberg’s Fennel Ice Cream on Orangette or David Lebovitz’s Banana-Brown Sugar Ice Cream) that can only be made with the aid of an ice cream makin’ machine.  Now, I know my way around a recipe, precisely because I’ve unlocked the key to cooking: it’s really just reading.  So when I get to the end of a recipe after mastering all sorts of techniques like simmering and tempering eggs and see the phrase “freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions,” all I want to do is kick the cookbook and drown my sorrows in a big pint of ice cream.  Preferably homemade.

“I cannot ‘freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions!’” I want to scream.  “I’m annoyed at your audacity for insisting I fork over the money to buy one of your pinko, newfangled machines.  How could it be possible that there’s no other way to make ice cream?  Didn’t they have ice cream before electricity?  I will freeze according to my OWN instructions, thank you very much.”  And with the aforementioned hubris, I marched into the world of MacGyvered ice cream construction.

First, I checked the internet, normally a fantastic culinary resource.  When I Googled “homemade frozen yogurt,” one of the first hits was a video on Youtube that started with a cup of supermarket yogurt and ended with really happy people enjoying their homemade frozen treat.  Needless to say, I set about copying their technique immediately.  If you want crunchy, icy, disgusting yogurt, follow this recipe.

How Not To Make Ice Cream (volume 1)

1 carton of plain yogurt (I used Tillamook)

1 ziploc baggie

(Do these ingredients sound like a recipe for success?  I don’t think so.)

Pour the yogurt into the baggie and stow in the freezer.  Take it out of the freezer every so often and marvel at its remarkable non-resemblance to frozen yogurt.  Smoosh it around, ostensibly to break up the ice crystals formed by freezing but really just to play with your food.  At the end of two hours, you’ll have a yogurt ice cube that you will throw away.

When the interwebs fail you, you have to think outside the box.  When I heard about a homemade ice cream technique successful at Jewish summer camps around the country, I thought, “This must be the ticket!”  I mean, Jewish summer camps have perfected the art of carrot sticks and gummy challah, so why not rely on them for my homemade ice cream needs?  If it’s successful enough to entertain a group of finicky children for an hour, it must actually work, right?  How mad would you have been at age 7 if somebody promised you could make ice cream with your bare hands and it didn’t work?  Hint: as mad as I was on Sunday at age 22.

How Not To Make Ice Cream (volume 2)

½ cup half and half

¼ teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon sugar

6 tablespoons rock salt

Ice cubes

1 pint-sized Ziploc baggie

1 large Tupperware container

(Was your first red flag the presence of another Ziploc in this recipe?  Me too.)

Combine the half and half, vanilla, and sugar into the small Ziploc baggie.  Fill the Tupperware halfway up with ice and then positively coat the ice in rock salt.  You think you have enough salt?  You don’t.  Add some more.  Salt, by the way, lowers the melting temperature of ice so it can stay frozen longer.  The longer ice stays cold, the less it melts and the faster it freezes your cream (this makes fewer jagged ice crystals in your ice cream and therefore keeps things smooth and creamy).

Seal up your small Ziploc with all the diligence you can muster and then entomb it in its Tupperware grave.  Now take a seat on the couch and put on a movie.  A long movie.  Think Ben Hur.  Pop some popcorn.  Grab a beer.  Get comfortable.  Now shake that Tupperware like a Polaroid picture.  The recipe says to shake it for five minutes and then you’ll have home-churned, delicious ice cream.  I shook it for 20 and all I got was soapy-looking half and half.

I hate this recipe.  It’s simultaneously aerobic and deceitful.

I learned a lot about how to make ice cream in this process.  But mostly what I learned is that they’re not kidding around when they tell you to “freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.”  So then I went out and bought an ice cream maker.

How to Make Ice Cream (volume 1: Buttermilk Ice Cream)

Adapted from Bon Appetit

6 large egg yolks

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2/3 cup brown sugar

Pinch of salt

1 cup chilled buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

First, buy an ice cream maker.  No, really, just spend the $50 and do it.

Chill medium-size metal bowl in freezer until cold, about 1 hour, or as long as it takes for you to do the other steps in the recipe: whichever comes first.

Whisk yolks in another medium metal bowl. Combine cream, sugar, and salt in large saucepan. Bring to simmer over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Gradually whisk half of hot cream into egg yolks in a process called tempering: this way, the eggs will heat slowly without scrambling. Return mixture to saucepan. Stir constantly over medium-low heat until custard thickens and coats back of spoon when finger is drawn across, 2 to 3 minutes (do not boil). Remove from heat.

Pour cold buttermilk into reserved chilled bowl. Strain custard into buttermilk (just in case you made any scrambled eggs); whisk. Whisk in vanilla. Chill mixture uncovered until cold, stirring occasionally, about 2 hours.

Process custard in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Let me reiterate: they’re not kidding.  Transfer ice cream to freezer container. Cover and freeze until firm if soft-serve isn’t your thing, at least 6 hours or overnight.

To view the original post, visit BBCook.