CROCK POT ICE CREAM!
I wanted to try making ice cream at home, Aldi gets $2.89 for a quart and a half of passable product, but it's loaded with oils and gums and such. I also have no desire to mess with an ice cream crank mixer, ice, salt and all that extraneous jiggery-pokery.
All the recipes for ice cream called for a metal bowl with a tight lid to freeze the ice cream in, which I haven't. Now I do have a 4 quart slow-cooker with a removable ceramic crock. The idea came after I saw the removable mixing bowl Cuisinart sells for their series of home ice cream machines. Looks like my crock. Thanks for the inspiration! Both the Cuisinart bowl and the ceramic crock must go in the freezer overnight before use, the home machine does not have refrigeration capability. [If you have a really good freezer, three or four hours should get the crock frozen nicely.]
With that in mind, ingredients at hand and the crock frosty cold, add the cold can of evaporated milk, sugar and vanilla. Using an electric mixer, mix on low for two minutes and pour in the heavy cream while still mixing. The mix will grow in volume about a third. Lid it and stick it in the freezer for an hour.
Bring it out and look, it should be starting to freeze around the top. Using a spatula, scrape the ice cream from the side down into the crock and hit it with the mixer again, just enough to incorporate the frozen bits back into the mix, less than a minute. Also, if you have chocolate syrup, drizzle it over the top of the ice cream in thin lines before you remix it, it will freeze and break into bits distributed throughout the mix, that's the best. 45 minutes later, mix it again, and add more chocolate syrup if you like.
This third scrape and mix is the charm. The ice cream should be frozen enough that you can now add your mix-ins, if you wish. I'm going with homemade chocolate chip cookie dough--no egg, about a cup. Don't put the mix-ins in until the ice cream is set enough so the goodies won't sink to the bottom.
After that, let it freeze, and enjoy. Two hours after the last mix, it was set up good enough I put the ice cream into a different container. I wasn't sure about letting it freeze in the crock completely, didn't want to risk cracking my crock. It's worth the effort, real ice cream with only the good stuff!
Ingredients:
1 12 oz. can evaporated milk [Cold]
1 cup white sugar
2 TB pure vanilla extract
1 pint heavy whipping cream [Cold]
Yield: 2.25 Quarts+
That sounds so good! I’ve got to make time this weekend to try it.