How to make Ice Cream Sandwhiches

In my searches on the web I've been finding more and more weird Ice Cream recipes recently. First fried ice cream, now the ice cream sandwhich. So first I'll explain just what the heck an ice cream sandwhich is, and then I'll show you how to make ice cream sandwhiches.

An Ice cream sandwich is rather deceptive because it's called a sandwhich, looks like a biscuit, and is actually a cake! It's a sort of hand-held light cake. It has a big slice of vanilla (or whatever flavor your like) ice cream between two slices of soft wafer and usually the wafer section is chocolate flavor.

Wikipedia says that the Ice Cream Sandwhich was made in New York around 1900. That goes hand in hand with the history of ice cream, much of which originated in that area. In Ireland and Scotland (where I hail from!) the ice cream sandwhich is known as a 'slider'. The wafer has been a popular alternative to the cone throughout history and if you think about it is really just a simpler version of the cone, enabling you to eat ice cream without getting too messy.

Anyway, now that you know just what it is, let's move on to how to make an ice cream sandwhich!

First off you need arout 2lbs of Ice Cream - If you don't know how to make ice cream yet, see some of our other tutorials.
Next you can simply sandwhich these between two store bought wafers- but that's horribly boring. Instead I suggest mixing nuts of your choice through the ice cream then making some chocolate brownies, rice crispie cakes or macaroon to replace your wafers. Anything that tastes good and is solid enough to hold the ice cream will do. You can be incredibly creative while learning how to make ice cream sandwhiches!

For extra flare you can use a cookie cutter to cut your ice cream sandwhiches into cute shapes. Here's an idea Valentines day raspberry ripple ice cream heart-shaped ice cream sandwhiches.

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How to make ice cream - Vanilla Flavor

Browsing around the net the other day I came across this recipe for how to make Vanilla ice cream. It's made with real vanilla so it's the genuine stuff.

Ingredients:

• 4 egg yolks
  
• 1/2 pint (250ml) milk
  
• 1/2 pint (250ml) double/heavy cream
  
• 4 oz (100g) sugar or caster sugar
  
• 1 vanilla pod sliced down the middle (so you can see the seeds)
  

Pour the milk into a saucepan and bring the pan slowly up to boiling point. Place the vanilla pod into it and leave to infuse for about 20 minutes.

In a bowl, beat and mix together the egg yolks and sugar until thick. Carefully remove the vanilla pod from the pan of milk and scrape out the seeds into the milk. Pour the milk into the mixture of egg yolks and sugar whilst stirring.

Pour the mixture back into the pan and heat gently, stirring until the custard thickens - DO NOT BRING TO THE BOIL OR IT WILL PROBABLY CURDLE. When you can see a film form over the back of your spoon it's time to remove the saucepan from the heat. Leave to cool.

When the custard base is cold stir in the cream.

You're done! You can now transfer the whole mix to your ice cream maker or to plastic bags for the freezer, depending on which method you use.

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How to make ice cream: Watermelon style!

This is a really neat and VERY simple trick I picked up on the internet somewhere a few days ago. Here's how to make ice cream shaped like watermelon slices.

Ingredients
Chocolate chips - These will be the "seeds"
Raspberry Sherbet and Lime Sherbet, preferably softened. These will be your Colors for the outside.
You can use cherry or strawberry, or other flavors, as long as it's red and green.

How to make the ice cream
Get a BIG mixing bowl and put in a layer of the Lime Sherbet. Mix the chocolate chips with the raspberry sherbet then use it to fill up the rest of the bowl. Then stick it in the freezer to refreeze.

Once it's ready take it out and turn upside down onto a large plate or board and ease it out (Tip: Use a warm towel on the bottom of the bowl to help the ice cream slide out). Slice it up into several pieces or "Watermelon slices". That's it! Great party piece and it tastes awesome.

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How to make ice cream softer

How to make ice cream softer is a bit of a problem since usually when you make homemade ice cream it will come out hard and crystalized. Crystals are caused when the water in the ice cream is allowed to warm up (even slighty) and then refreeze. If, during the process of making your ice cream, you don't shake it enough, it'll for crystals. This will make the ice cream have a hard, grainy texture and will also detract from the taste slightly too. You can duplicate this by taking a scoop of ice cream out of the freezer into a bowl, let it melt, then pop it back. Take it out again and you'll see that most of the water has seperated from the fat and as such there are large ice crystals.

So, how to make ice cream softer? Luckily there are a number of methods and they're all pretty simple and straight forward. Here are just a few.

1. Replace the sugar.
Sugar doesn't freeze and as such it's important to get the quantity correct. Replacing the sugar in your recipe with honey or corn syrup will produce a softer, creamier ice cream.

2. Fat & Gelatin.
You can add gelatin (available from most supermarkets) to your recipe to produce smoother ice cream.
You can also up the amount of fat in your recipe by adding egg yolks, substituting cream for whole fat milk, etc.

3. Add alcohol.
While I personally don't like adding alcohol to my foods, even just a couple of tablespoons of a high proof alcohol can help your ice cream become much smoother. The reason, again, is that alcohol doesn't freeze (put some whisky in the freezer and you'll see).

4. Freezing the ice cream at a higher temperature will also help you make smoother ice cream. If you don't want to adjust the dial on your freezer, store it nearer the door (warmest part of your freezer).

How to make ice cream just right is a bit of a balancing act but by trying out a few of these different techniques you can get excellent results.

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9 random facts you didn't know about ice cream!

What are the most popular ice cream flavors?

1. Vanilla, 29%
2. Chocolate, 8.9%
3. Butter pecan, 5.3%
4. Strawberry, 5.3%
5. Neapolitan, 4.2%
6. Chocolate chip, 3.9%
7. French vanilla, 3.8%
8. Cookies and cream, 3.6%
9. Vanilla fudge ripple, 2.6%
10. Praline pecan, 1.7%
11. Cherry, 1.6%
12. Chocolate almond, 1.6%
13. Coffee, 1.6%
14. Rocky road, 1.5%
15. Chocolate marshmallow, 1.3%
All others, 23.7%

What's the most popular ice cream topping?
Chocolate syrup

What's the ideal temperature to serve ice cream at?
8 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius)



Statistics and percentages:

Licking the bowl clean after eating ice cream is admitted to by approx 13% of men and 8% of women.

9% of milk produced by dairy farmers in the USA goes into producing ice cream.

Ice cream is an $11 billion-a-year retail industry (world wide).
80% of the world's Vanilla Bean used for ice cream is grown in Madagascar.


Miscellaneous facts:

The biggest ice cream sundae ever made was 12 feet high and made with 4,667 gallons of ice cream and 7,000 pounds of toppings in Anaheim, Calif., during 1985.

One of the major ingredients in ice cream is air. Without it, the stuff would be as hard as a rock!

Among the most unusual flavors of ice cream ever manufactured are avocado, garlic, azuki bean, jalapeno, and pumpkin. Perhaps the weirdest of all: dill pickle ice cream, which was marketed to expectant mothers. Sales were disappointing.

Sources: SendIceCream, DrSpock

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How to make cookie dough ice cream

In my search for information about ice cream I've found literally hundreds of recipes for both home-made and machine-made ice creams. I'm just amazed at how many different kinds and recipes there are. Anyway, I figured I'd post the recipe for my personal favorite: Cookie Dough flavor.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups milk
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 4 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup chocolate chip cookie dough
• 2 cups light cream

Directions:

Scald milk until bubbles form around the edge then remove from heat.
Add the sugar and salt and stir until dissolved.
Next, stir in light cream, vanilla, and the heavy cream then cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

1. If you're using an ice cream machine then follow instructions as normal and wait until it completes the process. You should be left with a chilled soft ice cream.

2. If you're using the home. Ziploc bags method, pour the contents into your smaller bag, place that into the bigger bag and then shake for 3 or 4 minutes. Again you should be left with a softish chilled ice cream.

Add the chocolate chip cookie dough. Just break up the dough as best you can with your hands and drop the bits into the soft ice cream.

Try to mix it around to ensure that the cookie dough is evenly distributed throughout the ice cream.

If using a machine, put the ice cream in the freezer for several hours until hard.
If using the bag method, place it back in the bag and shake for another 1-2 minutes. This will harden it up so it's ready to eat!

While the bag method is quicker, the machine method will wield much creamier, less crystalized ice cream. I haven't tried this recipe yet, but I'll let you know how it goes, I can taste it already!

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Fried ice cream?!

Wow, check this out. While searching for some of the more obscure things to do with ice cream I came across fried ice cream.. that's right, fried ice cream!

Apparently this rare dish is popular in mexican cuisine as well as Chinese and Japanese resteraunts in the U.S.

It is made by taking a scoop of ice cream which has been frozen at a very low temperature (even for ice cream), rolling in cornflakes or cookie crumbs and then briefly deep frying! The extremely low temperature of the ice cream prevents it from melting while being fried.

There you have it, strange but true! I haven't tried it yet myself but I imagine the extreme hot and cold temperatures would be very weird and it's probably quite hard to get right without melting the ice cream. Interesting none-the-less.

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