Monday, April 11, 2022

I is for Ice Creamish

 

#AtoZChallenge 2022 Blogging from A to Z Challenge letter

My favorite food groups are the pizza food group, the hamburger food group, the donut food group, and the ice cream food group (I eat like an 11 year old). Today, I bring you something from the ice cream food group, and I'm going to tell you right now that this is another of those recipes I went into with very low expectations.

I've seen various cooking shows where the host makes ice cream by mixing up ingredients, pouring it into a pan, and putting it in the freezer. When it is done, it LOOKS rather like ice cream, but does it REALLLLLLY taste like it? We only have their opinion, but as someone who comes from a family who makes REAL homemade ice cream, I'm afraid I'm a naysayer on this.

My great aunts made homemade ice cream on their back porch when I was a kid. They would drive out to the Berkschneider's farm and get big jars of fresh milk, then my great aunt Ecie would mix the ingredients together and pour it into the ice cream freezer, add ice and salt, and then everyone would help crank (except me, because I couldn't even turn it once, and when I found out how hard it was to crank, I managed to be unable to turn that silly crank for infinity). We ate homemade ice cream with fresh strawberries from the garden, and if it wasn't strawberry season, then we poured Hershey's syrup over it, They only ever made vanilla ice cream.

(Funny story that has nothing to do with this post, at least not directly: my parents had friends who got an ice cream freezer after having visited my great aunts' home and having ice cream there. They mixed their ingredients together, poured it into the freezer, and when it was done, their ice cream had what looked like peach halves all through it when they had made plain vanilla. Turns out they didn't beat the eggs first, and the peach halves were actually frozen egg yolks!)

I found a recipe for No Churn Chocolate Ice Cream. This was my chance to see if the cooking shows were telling the truth or not about how wonderful this stuff was.

I even had all the ingredients on hand:



The steps were easy. Whip the cream (note: don't lick your finger if some of the whipped cream gets on it, because without sugar added, it's just fluffy milk). In a separate bowl, mix the sweetened condensed milk with half a cup of cocoa powder, a pinch of salt, and a slug of vanilla.


Pretty sure this picture is sideways
and pretty sure I don't care

Stir one cup of the whipped cream into the cocoa mixture, then pour all of it into the rest of the whipped cream and fold them together.



When it's all mixed together, spoon it into a loaf pan that has been chillin' in the freezer.


It looks like chocolate pudding with whipped cream stirred into it, and it tastes much the same.



A piece of plastic wrap over the top of the pan, and into the freezer, and now we wait for 4-5 hours.

Tick...tick...tick...tick...tick....

Well.

It's definitely ice creamish.

I personally thought it was too sweet and reminded me of frozen whipped chocolate frosting, which it kind of was.

The workplace taste testers thought it was good and that it tasted like ice cream to them. One said it didn't feel cold enough, even though it's frozen.

My husband thought it had a weird texture, and his overall analysis was "Why? Why not just buy ice cream?"  With the money spent on the sweetened condensed milk and the whipping cream, I could have bought two half-gallons of Great Value ice cream, as in REAL ice cream.

I can definitely conclude that yes, indeed, my low expectations were met on this one.

21 comments:

  1. If that ice cream crank doesn't plug in, i'm not dealing with it.

    Like you, i figure it's easier to just buy the stuff than try to make an ersatz variety myself.

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    1. I have the real but plug-in kind. Definitely preferable to freezing in a loaf pan!

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  2. Wow, that looks delicious and so wonderfuly decadent!!!

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  3. That frozen egg yolks story is very funny. I only baked cake twice...may b i will try ice cream too..this post motivates . To me it looks yummy

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    1. I was probably about 7 or 8 when that egg yolk incident happened, and I have never forgotten it!
      I've also seen sorbet made on cooking shows, and I'm thinking that might turn out better than this ice cream did!

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  4. Not sure I would like it. Also involves a little more work than I care to do when making something. I do remember having that old fashion type of ice cream maker that needed ice and rock salt around it while you cranked the handle. The ice cream made from there was delicious!

    betty

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    1. It was a little much. Too sweet and too rich. But it turned out more like ice cream than I thought it would!

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  5. I've never tried to make ice cream myself.

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    1. I make homemade ice cream in an electric ice cream freezer sometimes, but I never feel like I have that ice-to-salt ratio quite right

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  6. I've never tried to make ice cream. It seems like a lot of work and I love Blue Bell ice cream so much, I'm afraid anything I made wouldn't be as good.

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    1. Homemade ice cream and store bought are apples and oranges. I actually prefer store bought, or at least commercially prepared. I like to try ice cream at small places that make their own ice cream there. I also like Blue Bell, Wells Blue Bunny, Hiland, Turkey Hill, Great Value.... Okay, I REALLY like ice cream!

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  7. I had never been interested in making ice cream until we upgraded our Kitchenaid mixer and the ice cream attachment was on sale. We made vanilla ice cream in it shortly after the purchase and it was so good. Of course, I didn't have to hand crank it so that helped. We didn't do a lot of ice cream over the winter, but I'm hoping to try a few more flavors a the weather gets nicer. Weekends In Maine

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    1. That hand cranking business is for the birds. The advent of electric ice cream freezers was a game changer!
      I didn't know Kitchenaid had an ice cream attachment. Hmmm. I have an almost-30 year old Kitchenaid that we got for a wedding gift. It is very basic but still does the job. Someday, I'd like to upgrade it

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  8. Last weekend I tried making mango icecream...just whipped cream, mango puree and sugar... used a hand mixer and put it in the freezer...it was decent and my kids loved it ! ( i barred myself from comparing it to the commercial ones ha ha )
    Chocolate icecream is one of my all time favorites.
    Visiting from A to Z

    Jayashree writes

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    1. I think a fruit sorbet-type dessert would work better with the loaf pan in the freezer method. Chocolate ice cream is one of my favorites, too!

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  9. I remember my mother making this kind of ice cream a few times when I was little.She put it in the ice cube trays to freeze it. Do not remember how it tasted. Yours does sound delicious.

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    1. Oooo, were they the metal trays that had the handle that you had to pull up? We had those growing up. We made kool aid ice cubes in them in the summer!

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  10. My mom talked about her father often making ice cream on Sunday afternoons, but the only rememberance I have is of my father making banana ice cream and freezing it in the old fashioned ice cream trays. Yours looks so good and I'm wanting ice cream right now.

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    1. It's not bad for a quick, easy ice cream! Good homemade ice cream made in an ice cream freezer is better, though! I've had homemade banana made in an ice cream freezer and it was really good.

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