Everybody is talking about ice cream.

Photo by Mo

Personally, I think Ice Cream may be the most over rated food, but I still find myself indulging every now and then.

And so does the rest of the United States with annual sales exceeding $21 billion. But why let the corporates have all the fun.

You can make your own!

Make Vanilla Ice Cream

Photo by Chris Metcalf

Ice Cream Ingredients

• 1 cup Milk
• Pinch of Salt
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 2 cups Heavy Cream
• 1 Vanilla Bean, split and scraped
• 5 egg yolks

Procedure

1. Combine the milk, sugar and salt and heat.
2. Remove the bean from the vanilla; either by snipping one end and running your finger along the hull as if where a toothpaste tube or but slicing the bean with a paring knife down the entire length and extracting it. Add the removed vanilla into the milk.
3. Mix your egg yolk, and gradually add some of the warmed milk while string to combine yolks with the milk.
4. Return milk and yolks to heat and continue to cook of low heat, constantly stirring to avoid scorching, until thick enough to coat on spoon.
5. Strain into the heavy cream.
6. Chill, with the remainder of the vanilla bean to allow for the remaining to be absorbed.
7. Remove the bean a let freeze in cream maker.

Make Ice Cream with out a Machine

1. Prepare your ice cream mixture. (Steps 1-6 above)
2. Pour mixture into a chilled durable bowl and place in the freezer.
3. Let freeze for about 45 minutes. You should see the edges start to form large cyrstals.
4. If so remove and mix thouroghly with a wisk, breaking up all the frozen parts, and return to freezer.
5. Every half hour or so recheck and rewisk, quite vigioursly, for 2-3 hours. You will want to break up as much of the crystals as possible to get a nice smooth and creamy result.