Homemade Ice cream
Ice cream as we know it today is a product of the 17th Century, partly in Italy, but also France, and later, via France into the Americas.
Two distinct ways of making ice cream appeared. The Italian way was to essentially freeze milk, and the other was to make a custard, which was the basic French mode.
The cold temperatures needed to freeze the product came from adding salt to ice. People always ask, once they hear about this method, how it works.
Essentially salt is made from two charged atoms (called ions when charged)
Sodium ion and Chloride ion, which are held together in a closed packed crystal. When this is added to ice, some of the water molecules surround each ion and this takes energy. The ice melting point is reduced, so the ice dissapears, but the resulting mix in colder than 0 C. If you put something in a container in this ice water, it will freeze!
Making ice cream is a simple process, stirring the mixture to break down the crystals, and after a while, you have ice cream. Of course, you can use an ice cream maker, which essentially does the same thing, but with a refrigeration unit.
You can still find Victorian ice cream makers which you pack with salted ice, fill the bomb and turn the handle, for hours!
Basic Quick Vanilla Ice Cream
600ml double cream, 300ml whole milk
2 tbsp honey
80g soft brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1. Warm milk with the honey and sugar.
2. Pour the milk and the other ingredients into a bowl and whisk well together or a minute.
3. Pour into a freezable lidded container and freeze for at least eight hours, stirring occasionally.
To make a chocolate version heat half the cream with 50g of dark chocolate until it melts. Whisk everything together and freeze as above.
Ice cream is not a modern invention, but has been around for a lot longer than you think
Image by a.pasquier from bellingham, washington (vanilla bean) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The earliest we can date iced foods are from China some 3000 years ago, which is somewhat amazing, not the least for the idea that recipes could be written in a permanent form at that time. These were not exactly what we could call ice cream, mostly being water based - more like a sorbet. This food made its way West and started to include milk and cream as a form of preservation.