I Scream for Ice Cream!

Alright, so maybe I don't exactly scream for ice cream (not since I was a kid, anyway), but I do enjoy the creamy cold stuff - especially if bits of chocolate skor bits are mixed throughout. For that we usually head to the local DQ, and now that they offer the Mini cups, it's a quick little sugar fix I need after dinner (did you know that DQ has a blog? Now you never have to miss an important announcement from the Dairy Queen...I mean, if that's important to you.).

So...where am I going with this? Well, no longer do we have to venture outside the condo for the taste of mini blizzard - we can make them at home!. My loving sister (the ice cream lover that she is), gave us a wonderful wedding gift - the gift of homemade ice cream! We had seen this little mixer in a newspaper probably about 2 or 3 months ago, and Sarah has been looking for them in stores ever since. It turned out that the ad that ran didn't happen to mention that they were only available in store early August. But Sarah finally managed to get her hands on one (in the end, she just ordered it online), and along with the mixer, she threw in a great book on ice cream, some great sundae toppers, and a couple ice cream mixers, too. I must admit, I love the gifts that I get to both use and eat (the edible variety I especially love because it won't take up much space in the kitchen for long...).

But let me tell you why I particularly liked this mixer - it's small, making 2 - 4 servings at a time. And storage is convenient, as long as you have room in your freezer - you simply place the two bowls in the freezer.  Then, when you're ready, mix together the milk, cream, vanilla, and sugar (for a basic soft serve ice cream) in a jar and let it sit in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

Once that's set, pour into one of the frozen bowls. Then place the motor on the bowl, hit the on switch, and let the machine do its thing. 15 minutes later you have frozen milk and sugar - also known as soft serve. We enjoyed this first batch over a warm peach cobbler, and with some left over, we'll enjoy a second serving tomorrow. Each bowl serves 1 - 2 people, so there isn't a need to find extra storage in the freezer for a large container. And with the new book of ice cream flavours, well, we have a lot of new recipes to try out. One quick and easy dessert is just put in a container of yogurt in the bowl, turn on the mixer, and voila - frozen yogurt!

For those of you without a handy-dandy ice cream maker of your own, check out this video on how to make ice cream with two plastic freezer bags. I've actually tried this out before and it works really well!

Mmm....what flavour shall we enjoy next?