TWD:It must be summer!

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In my jumbled vault of memories, I have a few, of myself and my sister, as little girls, freckled, sunburned, braids or pig-tails swinging, helping to make home made ice cream.  I am quite sure that these  memories have quantified, for it seems now that we did it many times; most likely it was exactly twice.  No matter, I have that memory and it is lovely.  What I do know is that the ice creams in question were churned on my grandmother’s patio, and as the ice cream maker was older than ourselves, it needed us to sit on it to keep it stable while someone turned the crank.  This ice cream making was far from a solitary affair, but rather needed most all my large family to help get it from cream to ice cream.  There was rock salt to be located, carried, poured.  Bases to be mixed.  And lots and lots of cranking to be done.   

But oh, oh, oh!  the flavor!  Two stand out in my mind.  One was a peppermint ice cream, made in part, from candy canes saved from Christmas and the other was fresh strawberry.  It is hard to go back to store bought.

Well imagine how I felt now, these taste memories floating in my mind, when I saw that ice cream was up for Tuesdays with Dorie this week, and then remembered that I had, uncharacteristically, given away our ice cream maker just one month ago. [You can find the recipe for the Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream at Culinary Curiousity]  I have been trying to turn over a new leaf, work against my patterns of saving every possible thing for every possible situation, and relinquished my ice cream maker to the Goodwill pile.  It is true it had gathered dust.  In fact, it had been living in my garage for the last couple years.  When it was new and sparkly it got lots of use.  But then our children were born and 9 years after receiving it for our wedding I think it had stood idle for at least the last 4.  So into the pile it went. 

At first I thought I would just take the alternate choice and make a recipe TWD had already done, but knew it wouldn’t be the same.  So then I checked out the links on making ice cream with out a maker.  I was committed to doing that.  Even though it would of taken hours of attention.  I really would of done it.  But thank goodness for neighbors.  Especially for Angie.  I was going on and on about TWD and my ice cream maker deficiency when she offered hers up- bowl already frozen and ready to go.

So ingredients gathered (why I can never do this in one trip to the store, I don’t know), ice cream maker borrowed, and book before me I got to work.  Quick work it was too.  In about 5 minutes the ice cream was ready to chill before churning.  Then after cleaning up the kitchen from dinner I popped it into the maker.  20 minutes later, into the freezer.  Not quite the 12 person, all afternoon experience of my childhood!  Since it doesn’t use a custard type base it is very quick, but it does taste distinctly different from the  ice cream flavor I was imagining.

My son described the flavor as he licked the churning blade (plastic, no worries!) as follows: “This tastes like frozen yogurt!  It’s not ice cream.”  He did still lick every last drop, except for the large blob that dripped on his chest (although he might of gotten that one too, but I wasn’t looking).  But he is right.  This ice cream tastes quite similar to the Stonyfield yogurt tubes I buy my kids sometimes, that we then freeze for an afternoon treat.  But while it tastes more like frozen yogurt than the ice cream of my childhood, it was delish nonetheless.

Tomorrow I will return Angie’s ice cream maker.  And, of course I will bring her a taste!  I have to if I ever want to try that very tempting Honey-Peach Ice Cream on the very next page!  Perhaps that can get me closer to recapturing that childhood decadence.

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