Home-made Ice Cream

One of the best things about summer is home-made ice cream.  (Blessing #876)  This is our 2nd batch so far.  My recipe is a combination of the one my mom uses and one from the recipe book that came with my ice cream maker.  Now, before you comment on the fact that I use raw eggs, I will say that my grandmothers always used raw eggs in their ice cream too, and no one ever got sick either.

Combine:

6 beaten eggs

2 1/2 cups sugar

3 1/2 TB pure vanilla

pinch of salt

2 cans evaporated milk

1 pint heavy whipping cream

Whole Milk (add enough to get the mixture to the "fill line" on the inside of the bucket)

This is what it looks like, just before we start freezing it.  Notice the pure vanilla?  My mom & dad brought that back from Mexico with them.  Nothing's better than pure vanilla from Mexico!  (#877)

Next, we go outside and assemble the ice cream canister with the wooden bucket and motor, add ice and salt around the edges, and sit back in our zero-gravity lawn chairs (so thankful for the person who invented these ~ #878) until the motor stops turning. 

We sat in the shade, with the nice (some-what cool) breeze coming off the cornfield south of us. That same cornfield will be full of lightening bugs tonight, putting on a show for us. (#879) They've been so thick this year, and when it gets dark, it looks like Tinkerbell sprinkled pixie dust all over. So cool!

Anyway, back to the ice cream . . .

Waa-lah . . . after about 30 minutes of churning and freezing, the ice cream is done!  Magnificent!  If your mouth isn't watering yet, it really should be.  It is A-MAZ-ING!

My brother has an ice-cream maker that has a handle that you crank until it's done, but that seems like a lot of work to me.  However, when you grow up with home-made ice cream every summer, you do whatever it takes to continue the tradition.