I scream, you scream...

Well, I made my first batch of ice cream with the Cuisinart ice cream maker today. It's a really clever gadget, that ice cream maker...you always think there has to be a lot of mystery involved in making the stuff. Even the home makers my folks used in ages past involved packing a big wooden bucket with ice and rock salt, nestling a metal cylinder into that, and attaching a crank and turning continuously. It was like some sort of magic ritual...the only thing that was missing was putting it inside a pentagram and reciting in Latin as we did it.

The Cuisinart gadget is astoundingly simple. It only has four parts, really: a base with a rotaty-motor in it, a bowl that sits on top of that and holds the ingredients, a paddle that sits in the bowl, and a lid that holds the paddle in place and offers a hole through which to pour in the ingredients. The bowl in particular is the genius point of the maker: all it really is is a larger version of those liquid-filled freezable drink mugs. Chill it down overnight, and it holds that sub-freezing chill long enough to impart it to the dairy mix you pour into it while the motor turns the paddle through it. It's one of those clever yet so simple ideas that you think even you could have thought of...if only you had thought about it.

So, I mixed up the mixture: 1 cup milk, 2 cups heavy cream, 3/4 cup sugar, 2 tsp vanilla. (It said 1-2 tsp to taste, and I like vanilla, so why not?) I took the bowl out of the freezer, assembled it with paddle and base, poured the stuff in, and away we went! (To my mild surprise, I found it was the bowl that rotated while the paddle stayed still...I had thought it was going to be the other way around.) Thirty minutes later, I was taking the paddle out and scraping the ice cream off of it (and then thoroughly licking it—some pleasures are not to be foregone) before putting it in the sink. Then I added a couple more spoonfuls of ice cream from the bowl itself, and tried some.

It was very good...but I think that next time I make it I will try halving the heavy cream and replacing it with milk, because it was also forevermore way too rich. I could feel my arteries hardening with every bite. I think I'll cut the vanilla, too, as 2 tsps turned out to be a touch too much. It was pretty soft—essentially soft-serve ice cream, so I guess now I have a better insight into exactly how that is made, too. The recipes in the instruction book note that commercial ice creams have preservatives and gums and the like as firming agents, and advise putting it in the freezer for a couple of hours after making it to make it harder. This I did with the remainder of the ice cream, and we'll see how that goes.

Isn't this going to be a fun surprise to pull out when company comes over?

More screaming

Did some research on the history of ice cream and found some very interesting myths surrounding it. For instance...

Once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, Charles I of England hosted a sumptous state banquet for many of his friends and family. The meal, consisting of many delicacies of the day, had been simply superb but the "coup de grace" was yet to come. After much preparation, the King's french chef had concocted an apparently new dish. It was cold and resembled fresh- fallen snow but was much creamier and sweeter than any other after- dinner dessert. The guests were delighted, as was Charles, who summoned the cook and asked him not to divulge the recipe for his frozen cream. The King wanted the delicacy to be served only at the Royal table and offered the cook 500 pounds a year to keep it that way. Sometime later, however, poor Charles fell into disfavour with his people and was beheaded in 1649. But by that time, the secret of the frozen cream remained a secret no more. The cook, named DeMirco, had not kept his promise.

Probably apocryphal, but a fun story anyway.

I've also gone ahead and written an Epinions review of the ice cream maker. Any Epinions members who read my LJ are more than welcome to go read it and maybe make me a penny or two. :)