Ice Cream Summer Part II

Part of an on-going series as we make home-made ice cream all summer long!

The first batch of ice cream on our second week was Whoppers ice cream. It's vanilla with the malted and chocolate-coated candy thrown in. The recipe in the book recommends crushing candy before putting it in, so I used our little food processor to turn the Whoppers into chunky powder. The Chop setting did the job I wanted--mostly powdered with some chunks that were no bigger than half a Whopper. I was not sure of a good method to crush Whoppers by hand (maybe in a zip-lock baggie and some sort of mallet?). The food processor was fast and easy to clean.

Best ingredient ever?

Inconveniently Whopper-shaped Whoppers

Cut down to size!

The ice cream itself came out well. I love Whoppers, so the flavor can't go wrong. For the next time, I might try malted milk powder and a sea salt chocolate bar that's been food-processed, maybe some caramel sauce too if I feel ambitious or adventurous. Did I say I have a sweet tooth? I can call it "Whoppers#notreallyWhoppers."

Finished product

The next experiment was making basic chocolate ice cream from the machine's recipe book. The ingredients are still simple but the process is a little more involved.

Not quite matching chocolate bars

I had to heat the milk till just bubbling. While that was heating up, I food-processed the chocolate bars (which I notice were only 3.5 ounces each, so they did not make the 8 ounce total for chocolate) with the sugar to get it mostly powdery.

A bit of the bubbly

Chocolate bars and sugar take up most of the space

Once the milk was hot enough, I mixed it into the food processor with the chocolate and sugar and did some more processing. Our food process turns out to be slightly too small for the job, we lost one or two tablespoons of milk chocolate due to overflow as the machine mixed. The chocolate/milk/sugar then went into a bigger bowl to cool down. Once it was back to room temperature, the heavy cream and vanilla went in and the whole bowl went to the fridge for thirty minutes of cooldown.

Doesn't look overloaded when it isn't mixing

Cool swirls in the midst of mixing

The last step was pouring the mixture into the machine and giving it the usual thirty minutes of processing. The results came out really well. The chocolate flavor wasn't too weak. I guess the name-brand chocolate's higher quality compensated for its lower quantity. Using the sea salt bar added a little extra salt which probably had an impact as well.

The kids asked for a slushie, which is something we can create in the ice cream maker. My daughter whipped up some homemade lemonade--lemon juice, water, and sugar. The machine's slushie instructions insisted that any juice, soda, or other beverage not be sugar free or else the results would be bad. The kids were happy with the results.

Adding lemon

Adding sugar

Adding to the machine

Slushie!

My daughter decided to make chocolate chip cookie dough as a snack for herself (she makes it without eggs, so it's okay). She made some extra for cookie dough ice cream. 

Five simple ingredients!

A California of Cookie Chunks

Unfortunately, the machine's freezer bowl did not get cold enough after the slushie experiment, resulting in liquidy ice cream with the chunks on the bottom. Curse you, gravity!

A smooth top

Nobody wants a chunky bottom

My wife remembered some advice from a cookbook about adding two tablespoons of alcohol and mixing every thirty minutes or so to remedy the situation. We dutifully added some vodka (the least flavorful option) and set a thirty minute timer. We repeated the process four or five times until the ice cream firmed up.

Chillin'

The results were popular in our house, though I think the cookie dough wasn't as satisfying as the stuff I've had in store-bought ice creams. Maybe it needs the eggs or some other secret ingredient? The chunks were suspended in the vanilla ice cream, so the alcohol trick worked. It was a bit tedious to keep restirring, though.