Tutorial: The Easiest Ice Cream

If you're reading this blog, you're probably the type of person who knows that National Ice Cream Month is in full swing.

Or perhaps you caught one of the countless segments about this all-important issue on most every morning news and talk show some time in the past three weeks?

I don't miss those crazy PR blitzes from my days as a morning show producer, but this is a pitch at which I would have happily bit.

It's clear that National Ice Cream Month was dreamed up by the dairy industry in a bid to boost sales, and I've certainly done my part to help. One summer in college, I inadvertently observed an almost all ice cream diet and ended up losing more than a few pounds.

What I'd do for a Wegmans in SF...

This year, on  National Ice Cream Day (the third Sunday in July) my family and I appropriately found ourselves at a dairy farm in Woodstock, Vermont.

My nephew getting a lesson on where ice cream comes from.

Dukan Diet be damned - of course I also had to sample the local offerings. I wondered how I spent two and half years living and working in the Vermont TV market without ever having being introduced to a maple creemee.

But I digress.

There are still almost two weeks left in this magnificent, once-a-year, 31-day celebration, and have I ever got an idea for how you can mark the occassion: make your own ice cream!

I'm not asking you to run out and buy a bulky machine, or rock salt, or anything fancy at all.
Are you ready for this? All you need are ten minutes, a mixer, and just two very basic ingredients to start making ice cream that will easily rival your favorite brand. 

Flavors and mix-ins are limited only by your imagination. Here I've got macadamia nuts to go with white chocolate, bacon to go with salted caramel, and a mix of strawberries and pomegranate.

 

 

Step 1

Start with 1 pint of heavy whipping cream.
Whip until peaks form.
You don't need a stand mixer, a hand mixer will do the trick.

 

Step 2

Empty a 14oz. can of sweetened condensed milk into a bowl.
Mix in flavors and ingredients of your choosing.

Step 3

Fold whipped cream into condensed milk mixture until uniformly combined.

Step 4

Pour mixture into a container and store in freezer.

(I hit up the clerk at a neighborhood take-out place for these cardboard tubs that were just perfect,  but you can use tupperware.)








And then comes the hardest part - waiting for it to freeze. And when it does, I promise this ice cream will be so creamy and smooth, you'll be able to convince people you slow-churned it by hand.

Caramel bacon on the left, strawberry-pomegranate on the right.

I know. It sounds too good to be true. But try it, and trust me, you'll be snickering to yourself the next time you see someone eyeing the elaborate ice cream maker display at Williams Sonoma.