Ice Cream in Your Blender
CrankyGreg forwarded this to me from the excellent Instructables website the other day. Instant ice cream is a delightful problem, and I’d like to make it yours too.
The upshot is that you can make ice cream in your blender if you have frozen fruit in your freezer, and something creamy and somewhat liquid, and some sugar. Five minutes, and you get good stuff in your very own custom flavors, at the perfect slightly soft consistency for eating.
Here’s th
e link. And here’s what we’ve tried:
Blueberry-Eggnog Ice Cream:
- 3 c. frozen blueberries
- 1 c. egg nog
- 1/3 c. sugar (or a little more)
Put it all in your blender and blend until it’s the right texture for you, scraping down the sides as necessary. As you can see in the picture, I didn’t completely puree it since we some of us are partial to eating the frozen berries whole.
It was awfully good. Greg, who is no slouch when it comes to the world-wide web, proclaimed it “The best thing the Internet has ever given us.” E. dove right in and didn’t stop until his bowl was empty and his face, neck and shirt were completely purple. Z. sat looking at it for 20 minutes or so, kind of mumbling, “Well, I don’t know if it’s going to be yummy.” But then he decided to brave it, and told me it was, in fact, yummy.
Then the next day after lunch, I thought, “Why stick to those ratios*?” I wanted something a little sweet after lunch, and had peeled a pomegranate and frozen the seeds the day before. (By the way, I really thought that the boys would have found picking the seeds from the intricacies of a pomegranate an interesting project. No dice.) And I had some leftover canned peaches in the fridge, so in they went to become:
Pomegranate-Peach Granita
- Seeds from one pomegranate, frozen
- 1 c. canned peaches
Blend until chunky-smooth (the seeds keep it fairly grainy). Eat immediately.
Next, I’m thinking of seeing what happens with those ice-cube-tray blocks of pureed butternut squash and the rest of the egg nog. I expect good things.
* There is a reason for those initial ratios really. Frozen things tend to become completely solid without significant amounts of sugar and/or fat. Because of this, this technique and the suggested ratio is great for things you want to eat right away, but less so for anything that might go in the freezer.
