I Scream , You Scream, We All Scream For ICE CREAM !!
As you may know, from other blog posts, we have our own milk cow and so our own cream. Our Jersey cow provides us with beautiful thick, almost yellow cream that is sometimes thick enough to spread on your toast straight from skimming it off the milk. See our milk blog post.
With this yummy cream, I decided to make our own ice cream. If you don’t have your own milk cow or access to fresh farm milk, you could buy pure cream from the shop. Make sure it is real 100% cream and not thickened cream. Thickened cream is no good for you. One good thing about real bought cream is that, at least, it is not homogenized, just pasteurized. See our milk blog post.
When we first moved to the country, I met a lady who said that she always bought cream and made her own ice cream, rather than buying ice cream from the shop. Her reason was that it tasted better, was healthier and it was real ice cream. As I studied the ingredients on the labels of the ice cream in the shops, I too realised that a lot of them don’t even have any cream in them, let alone any milk products. That is scary. On the contrary, there is a list of very disturbing ingredients. I like to call them poisons because our bodies just can’t handle them very well, and these ingredients certainly are not food for our bodies. If you do happen to chance upon a real ice cream, in the shops, you will have to pay a premium and there will still be some ingredients that cause concern.
So, you were worried about putting on weight because you love ice cream. You are right. However, real ice cream is at least food for your body and digestible. If you make your own real ice cream, you can keep it as a treat, with the assurance that you know what the ingredients are. Also, you then have the option of reducing the amount of sugar in the ice cream, which is the cause of gaining weight.
Making your own ice cream is not only healthier but cost effective as well. Yeah!
Anyway, I have been on a little recipe journey to making better ice cream. At first, I simply whipped up the cream, with vanilla essence and sugar, to a soft consistency that held stiff peaks if you pulled up the cream with a spoon. This ice cream was great but very heavy. I found that when I added cocoa to make chocolate ice cream, the consistency of the ice cream was better. This led to adding sifted flour to my vanilla recipe. Yum !
However, I thought the recipe could be improved. I wanted to make it lighter and fluffier. Also the above recipe was freezing rock solid and took a long time to defrost enough to spoon out. I suppose this was due to the butter ratio.
So here is my recipe now.
Mum Hair’s Ice Cream Recipe
Ingredients: Cream, Sugar, Vanilla Essence, Egg whites.
Method: Use the amount of egg whites that , when whipped, give you the same amount of whipped cream and whipped egg whites. If you don’t have enough eggs, just use what you have. You can use the yolks for other baking, like brownies.
The cream and egg whites are whipped separately. See below.
Whip the egg whites with sugar to sweeten and encourage the whites to stiffen. Beat till you can get stiff peaks by pulling the mixture up with a spoon.
Whip the cream with some vanilla essence and sugar. Control the sugar to taste. Remember cold food tastes less sweet than warm food. Also, remember that the sweetened egg white mixture will sweeten the ice cream too. Beat the cream to the consistency of the egg whites, not too stiff.
Don’t beat the cream too much as the butter will start to separate and your ice cream will be crumbly.
Fold the two mixtures gently together, put it into your containers and place it straight into the freezer.
Variations: You can add cocoa to the cream before you whip it. You can fold fruit, chocolate bits, biscuit crumbs etc. into the mixture at the end. You can also drizzle a syrup over the ice cream before you freeze it. Try adding sifted flour to the cream, before you whip it, to make the ice cream stretch a little more.
This makes lovely soft, fluffy ice cream that you can scoop with a spoon straight out of the freezer. ENJOY !!
homemade icecream, home made icecream, home made ice cream, homemade ice cream, easy homemade icecream
Written By Guest Blogger
Mrs Evelyn Hair
(Our Precious Mother)
0 comments