TASTY SCIENCE

So, apparently my science education was lacking as a child, because I never made ice cream!  Everyone who I've talked to has done that little experiment in school where they take rock salt, ice, heavy cream, whipping cream, sugar, vanilla, and either coffee cans or bags, and made ice cream! I have never, until today, indulged in this homemade version of the treat!  NEVERMORE, I made it today while watching TV and I'm not sure if I'll get real ice cream again.  I think I'm going to experiment with using different, more health conscious, versions of the high fat/calorie laden creams and then freezing so maybe it becomes a kind of ice-milk? Maybe thawed cool whip? Even full fat milk is, comparatively, more healthy than the disastrous heavy whipping cream.

Some ideas for add-ins.  I wonder if you put chia seeds in at the beginning, pre-freezing, if they would expand in the mixture? They would add a nice crunch to the cream.  Crumbled low-fat chocolate cookies, some honey, cacao nibs, graham crackers, raisins (oddly enough, I like cold raisins a lot), chocolate/caramel syrup, fresh blueberries, granola/kashi cereal....I could go on and onnnnn.

Homemade Vanilla Ice-Cream

Adapted from Ice cream in a bag!

Ingredients:

1 cup heavy whipping cream 

1 cup half-and-half

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups rock salt

Bag of ice

2 sandwich bags

1 gallon bag

Directions: Fill one sandwich bag with creams and sugar, seal tightly and try to get as much air out as possible, then put the filled sandwich bag into the empty sandwich bag and seal.  Pack ice and salt around bag of ingredients within gallon bag. Seal gallon bag tightly.  I put the full gallon bag in a towel and then just rolled it around for 5-10 minutes, and I refilled it with ice once at the halfway mark.  Once it looks of an ice cream-y consistency, take bag of ice cream out of gallon bag and then out of the sandwich bag.  Then, put the vanilla into the finished product, at that time add any add-ins you wish. I split it into two servings, and put the remaining serving in the freezer.  It was like a very soft soft serve, so good!

Note: Land-O-Lakes had a fat-free half-and-half that I hesitated to get because it was my first time with this recipe, next time I'm going to get that, and then see if there's anyway to get a lower fat-filled heavy cream substitute, but for now it's a pretty decadent treat, but it was much needed after a stressful week!