Ice Cream

At the end of July Cupcake turned three!  (And I turned three two.)  We had a big backyard barbecue - hamburgers and hot dogs, potato salad, and a 10 gallon bucket of strawberry limeade.  Along with the cupcakes and cookie bouquet, we made six kinds of ice cream.  Six.  Because we don't do anything half way here.

We asked Cupcake what kind of ice cream she wanted, and she replied with "pink."  So after much debating, we settled on this recipe for Pink Lemonade Ice Cream.

1 cup sugar
1 cup whole milk (we used half and half)
2 cups whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

To make it pink lemonade, add a full can of lemonade concentrate (half wasn't enough) and some food coloring.

For root beer we added extra vanilla and some sassafras flavoring (no clue how much, just added more until it tasted right).  This was probably the most popular flavor.

We also made cake batter ice cream, with the addition of 3/4 cup of a yellow cake mix.  I would suggest cutting back a bit on the sugar because this stuff was sweet.  I tried to add sprinkles, but they all sunk to the bottom.  This recipe suggests whipping the cream first, which would probably help with that.

We used a couple of different freezing methods.  We have an ice cream ball (mixture in one end, ice and salt in the other, shake until frozen), and a friend has an in-freezer style with a turn crank.  As a last ditch effort (since I hate buying ice), I put the mixture into a yogurt container and stuck it in the freezer, shaking or scraping it every half hour or so until solid.  Honestly, you can't tell them apart.  They are all a nice soft serve consistency that is perfect straight from the freezer.

And in case you were wondering, Aaron also made a peachberry passion (peach, strawberry, passion fruit) and lychee ice creams, and I made some orange coconut.