Adventures in Ice Cream Making

This week, the kids talked me into getting an ice cream maker.  In the DIY spirit, they told me that they wanted to make ice cream from scratch and they wanted to know how.   I want them to know where their food comes from and how it's made, rather than thinking it just magically appears in the grocery store aisle.   So I'm glad they take interest in it... even if it is a ploy to consume more sugar!  And living in this warm climate, who could refuse some homemade ice cream now and then?  So I did a little research and found this machine, which was relatively inexpensive and got great reviews.

The day it arrived, they wanted to get right to it.  We decided to start with a raspberry sorbet because it looked simple and we only had an hour or so before we needed to start our bedtime routine. 

While the kids and I worked on the sorbet, Dan did Evie's hair.  Picture proof right here.

After the slow going task of straining out the raspberry seeds(!) the sorbet was ready to be chilled.

The next day we put it in the ice cream maker.

When Dan lived in Liberia as a kid, the only way they could get ice cream was to make it themselves.  They had one of those old-fashioned ice cream makers with a crank.  He felt like it required some careful watching for the ice cream to turn out.  I'm happy to report that this is not the case with the new motorized machines.   The actual ice cream making was easy, albeit loud.  The sorbet turned out great.

So this afternoon we ventured out into actual ice cream territory.  We used this recipe.  It was a little more involved than the previous recipe, but still easy.  It required a lot of stirring which the kids loved!

Ready to chill.

It smells amazing, like hot chocolate.    But these things take time.  It won't be ready until this evening.  After this 90 degree day, we'll all be ready for it.

Do you have a favorite ice cream recipe? Let me know what it is.  We'd love to try it.