Vanilla Ice Cream (Ice Cream Maker NOT Needed)

I have been working on eating healthier, so I wanted to get this recipe out of my ‘to post’ list! Every time I look at the pictures, I remember how awesome this ice cream was. I don’t own an ice cream maker, so I had to stir it by hand. It was a lot of work, I won’t lie, but it was so worth it! I don’t know exactly what it was, maybe the fact that there was so much work put into it or knowing it was made by hand, but this ice cream was a million times better than any store bought variety. Like I said, it takes some effort, but if you have ever wanted to try making your own ice cream and don’t want an ice cream maker sitting around your house (evil! I’d be making ice cream every day!), then try this recipe out. Even if you only make it once, you’ll be glad you did!

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cups milk
• 8 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 ½ cups whipping cream
• 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

This recipe should make roughly 16 half cup servings… but who only eats a half cup of ice cream?! It ended up being about 10 servings, give or take, for us. We made shakes, floats and I even had some mocha coffee ice cream with it! Next time, I think I will make some ice cream sandwiches. I don’t have any pictures of me making the ice cream because I had started and couldn’t find my camera.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, let your milk get hot (but not boiling). Stir it often. Once it is warm, remove it from the heat and set it aside. Now, place your egg yolks and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Mix on low for a minute or so, letting the mixture get well blended and start to thicken. Add in, slowly and a little at a time, your warm milk. Keep mixing and adding the milk until all of it is in your mixing bowl. Pour this into your original saucepan and cook over medium heat. Stir this constantly and wait for small bubbles to form around the edge and the mix to be somewhat steamy. Make sure you do not bring it to a boil. Transfer this to a large bowl (I cleaned out my mixing bowl and used it) and stir in the remaining ingredients.

Cover and let this chill in your fridge overnight. Now, if you have an ice cream maker, this is where you can follow the directions for it. If not, well, this is where the real work begins! Once you take the mix out of the fridge (you have to let it chill overnight or at least 8 hours), transfer it to a freezer safe bowl.

Put it in the freezer for 45 minutes and then stir it with a fork or whisk, making sure to mix the frozen sections up. Do this every 30 minutes until the ice cream is the correct consistency. I read that this should take about 3 hours, but mine took more like 6! I don’t think my freezer was turned up high enough really.

The more it freezes, the harder you need to stir it. It will get pretty tough towards the end. If you don’t stir it, there will be lots of ice chunks and it won’t be nearly as good. This ice cream won’t have the same smoothness of store bought ice cream or even ice cream made in an ice cream maker, but it is still awesome.

I loved this vanilla ice cream… really. I won’t buy store bought again, even if this was a lot of work… it was worth every second!

Related posts:

1. Sour Cream Strawberry Pie

Tags: featured, homemade, ice cream

Category: Dessert