Friday, September 7, 2012

Super Simple Vanilla Icecream


 
Super Simple Vanilla Ice Cream
 
 
I have been craving ice cream all week!  Really longer than that.  This week I decided to mix up a batch of vanilla ice cream.  My mother-in-law has a fabulous recipe that uses sweetened condensed milk, half & half, whole milk, and vanilla, and she uses one of those big ice cream makers which uses lots of ice and rock salt.  I happen to have one of those big ice cream makers (several actually since we have the electric version, the hand crank version, and a new one with a plastic tub).  But I also have a smaller countertop ice cream maker, which my mom got me for Christmas one year (thinking I would never use it) but I use it all the time!  It makes a perfect small batch of ice cream.
 
This is my ice cream maker:
 
I found some on Amazon here.
 
I also remembered seeing a recipe similar to the one my mother-in-law uses on one of my most favorite blogs, Finding Joy in My Kitchen.  SnoWhite always has delicious, easy recipes and I knew I could depend on this recipe. 
 
I had a can of sweetened condensed milk in my pantry and some 2% milk in my refrigerator (even though SnoWhite lists whole milk or half & half in her recipe).  I changed the recipe just a teeny bit to use what I had in the pantry and my craving for icecream was over!
 
This is how I made Super Simple Vanilla Ice Cream AT HOME MY WAY:
 
Super Simple Vanilla Ice Cream
 
 
  • 1 can sweetened condensed milk
  • 4 cups milk (I used 3 cups of 2% milk plus 1 cup milk prepared using powdered milk)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla.
 
Mix well and refrigerate until cold.  Add to ice cream maker and churn away until its ready.
 
  • I prefer my homemade vanilla ice cream to be the texture of melty soft serve.  But I do freeze the remaining ice cream in a lidded container and it hardens nicely, although it won't be as creamy as if you used cream in the recipe.  It turns out after its frozen more like ice milk.  This was a super easy, super cheap and super delicious way to use what I had in my pantry to make wonderful treat!