There's no better time to enjoy cool, creamy ice cream than on Independence Day. Especially if you declare your own independence and make it yourself.
Homemade ice cream doesn't necessarily save you money, when you're buying quality ingredients such as heavy cream and pure vanilla. But there's the idea of being able to control the product, and the creativity of designing your own flavors.
And if you're having a party, ice-cream making is one of those novelty cooking activities that tends to draw attention (especially if your ice-cream maker has a loud motor).
People are curious and want to watch the canister spinning around in an ice-packed machine. If you've got an old-fashioned hand-cranked machine, well, you can call on everyone to take a turn.
A fun idea that doesn't require a machine is "kick the can" ice cream, where the ice cream is churned by rolling around on the ground. You can buy a round, sturdy soccer-ball replica in some camping/sporting goods stores. It has an inner canister for the creamy mixture, surrounded by a compartment for the ice and salt.
Or, try the recipe using a 1-pound can and a 3-pound can, as outlined in Dian Thomas' "Fun at Home" (Thomas Publishing, $14.95).
Scientifically, ice cream is a complex structure of ice crystals and fat globules. Done right, the frozen mixture has a smooth texture, not a coarse, grainy one.
Some recipes call for eggs, which are cooked into a thin, rich custard before churning.
Air is incorporated into ice cream during the freezing process; it's called "overrun" in commercial ice cream. This is why you don't fill the canister to the brim before you turn it on; you need to allow space for the ice cream to expand.
Without air, ice cream would be a dense, frozen brick. Ice cream with a little air in it is dense and creamy; a higher overrun gives you very light, pillowy ice cream.
Home machines incorporate less air into the mixture than big-batch commercial machines, so your homemade ice cream is likely to be more dense and creamy than what you'll find in the store.
To get in the July 4 holiday spirit, we started with a basic vanilla ice-cream recipe from "The Dessert Bible," by Christopher Kimball (Little Brown, $29.95).
Then we added some red, white and blue in the form of pitted cherries, coconut and blueberries.
Cherries have a long American history, with the legend about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree. And it's cherry season here in Utah.
Blueberries are one of three native North American fruits. And coconut is a nod to the last state to join the Union, Hawaii.
To keep the colors from bleeding, we folded the berries and coconut into the ice cream after the churning was finished.
For a change of pace, we also tried the Avocado Ice Cream from "125 Best Ice Cream Recipes," by Marilyn Linton and Tanya Linton (Robert Rose, $18.95).
Popular in South America, avocado ice cream has a beautiful color and a velvety texture.
For the adventurous, the "125 Best Ice Cream Recipes" also includes tomato basil, sour cherry and black pepper, and roasted garlic flavors.
Nutrition-wise, ice cream can be on the high-fat side, but you can decrease the fat content by using half-and-half instead of heavy cream, or 2 percent milk instead of whole milk. However, the resulting treat will have more of an icy texture.
To smooth out the icy, grainy texture in a fat-free Berry Sorbet, we used strawberry jam as suggested in "The Dessert Bible."
Preserves have a lot of pectin in them, which interferes with the ice crystallization. Jams also add a lot of concentrated flavor.
And how about polishing off your ice cream with homemade root beer?
In early days, root beer was made from the roots of the sassafras tree, and licorice root, sarsaparilla root, cherry tree bark and other flavorings. The modern-day method is a lot easier. You can find root beer concentrate in the flavorings aisle near vanilla extract. Use dry ice for carbonation, or add a can or two of club soda.
Also included is a recipe for root beer-flavored ice cream, which is like having a root beer float in a bowl.
E-mail: vphillips@desnews.com
RED, WHITE AND BLUE ICE CREAM
2 cups whole milk
1 1/3 cups sugar
4 cups heavy cream
2 large eggs plus 4 egg yolks
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups pitted sweet cherries, quartered or roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1 cup shaved sweetened coconut
Combine milk, 2?3 cup of the sugar and the cream in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat.
Bring mixture to 175 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, stirring occasionally. Mixture should be hot but not bubbling.
Meanwhile, combine the whole egg and egg yolks with the remaining 2?3 cup sugar in a medium bowl and beat with an electric mixer or whisk by hand until pale yellow and thick, about 2 minutes with a mixer or 4 minutes by hand.
Remove 1/2 cup of the hot milk mixture from the saucepan and add slowly to the beaten egg yolks while whisking vigorously.
Whisk this mixture back into the cream mixture in the saucepan. Over low heat, cook mixture until it reaches 180 degrees, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes. The custard should be the thickness of heavy cream but should not boil or bubble. If the mixture starts to give off a fair amount of steam, take it off the heat for a few moments and stir vigorously.
Pour custard through a fine-mesh strainer into a nonreactive bowl. Stir in vanilla extract.
Place bowl into a larger bowl filled halfway with ice water to cool. When mixture reaches room temperature, cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or for at least 6 hours.
When mixture is chilled, transfer to an ice-cream machine and follow manufacturer's directions. The ice cream will still be somewhat soft after churning.
Pour ice cream into a large bowl, and fold in cherries, blueberries and coconut. Serve as is, or transfer ice cream to an airtight container and freeze until firm, 1-2 hours. Makes about 21/2 quarts.
— adapted from "The Dessert Bible," by Christopher Kimball
STRAWBERRY SORBET
2 12-ounce packages frozen raspberries, thawed
1 16-ounce package frozen strawberries, thawed
1 1/2 cups sugar (to taste)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup strawberry jam
Puree raspberries in blender. Press through a sieve to remove seeds, if desired. Puree strawberries with sugar, lemon juice and jam until sugar is dissolved.
Pour into large bowl and mix in pureed raspberries. You should have about 6-7 cups of sorbet mixture. Pour into a large bowl and chill in the freezer until mixture is slightly frozen. Transfer to an ice cream machine and churn following the manufacturer's directions. Scoop into a plastic container, seal well and transfer to the freezer for several hours. If sorbet is hard to scoop, let sit at room temperature for several minutes to soften.
Makes about 2 quarts.
— Valerie Phillips
AVOCADO ICE CREAM
8 ripe avocados, peeled, pitted and chopped (about 2 cups)
2 cups whipping cream
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
In a food processor or blender, puree avocados, cream, sugar and lime juice until smooth. Transfer to an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Makes about 2 quarts.
—"125 Best Ice Cream Recipes"
by Marilyn Linton and Tanya Linton
KICK-THE-CAN ICE CREAM
3/4 cup whole milk
1 cup cream
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Flavoring (chocolate syrup, raspberry, etc.)
1 pound coffee-type can and plastic lid
3-pound coffee-type can and lid
Crushed ice
3/4 cup salt or rock salt
In smaller can, combine milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, egg and flavoring, then stir. Place plastic lid on can and put into the 3-pound can. Pack ice and rock salt in the space between the two cans. Then put the lid on can. Roll can back and forth to a friend for about 10-15 minutes. Take lid off, and with a knife or spatula, scrape the ice cream off sides of can and stir back into the ice cream mixture. If it needs more freezing, drain water out of large can and pack with more ice and rock salt, and roll 5 minutes more. Makes about 21/2 cups.
— "Fun at Home" by Dian Thomas
ROOT BEER ICE CREAM
4 cups whipping cream
4 cups milk
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons root beer concentrate, or to taste
Combine all ingredients. Cover; refrigerate 30 minutes. Transfer to an ice-cream machine and freeze as directed. Makes about 21/2 to 3 quarts.
— Valerie Phillips