Frozen Custard

  So things have not been that great here in the last week, and I have not been doing much in the way of baking or anything.  I lost a wonderful Uncle last night, and I think that my memories of him are something I will always treasure.  I wanted to dedicate this post to him, as this was made with the ice cream maker he gave us.  And I really have no other way to get over the hurt than to eat sweet stuff and talk about it.   I made this and wrote it a few weeks ago, and I think the reason I never posted it was because I knew it was going to be a great memory of him.  I miss him, but know I will see him again one day.  Thanks for letting me share.

This is how it all looked when it was just frozen, I had to stop myself from just eating it all.

  I dream of ice cream.  But totally in a not weird way.  You know it's not like I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about it, I just sort of day dream about all the yummy ways I could make it if I had an ice cream maker. I mean an electric one, because the one I have stinks.

  That's totally normal right?

My super old ice cream maker and the secret ingredient.

 Well don't tell me, I don't want to know the answer.

  Anyway, I do have a super old ice cream maker, my uncle gave it to my mom well over 20 years ago.  And with that sentence I am depressed at my age and think I need to stop and have an ice cream break.

  Okay, all better.

  So with my super old ice cream maker, you really don't get that great of a result, which I totally forgot about when I decided to use it again.  I was at work and over heard one of the girls mentioning frozen custard.  I was all "I'll make that for you!" And set to work figuring it out.

  Now to me figuring it out meant finding the easiest way possible to make it happen.  So I started by finding custard powder in the baking isle.  All you needed was to add the powder to hot milk and sugar.  How hard could that be?  I also had to freeze the bowl of my super old ice cream maker and I was all set.

Don't know why this picture is important, but it has good lighting which is rare for me.  Ignore the pink shopping bag on the floor, I try to.

 Also when planning this I had to find a way to bring it to work. I mean we have a freezer but how to serve it, that was the problem.  I was actually super lucky to be in Michael's where I found these ice cream party containers.  They were super cute and they had these little wooden spoons, you know the ones, like a paddle.  And you got 6 for $3.50 which was not totally crazy.  So there you go, Michael's to the rescue! I may have an addiction to the place.

  So the day I made this I was also going to make cookies for my son's school trip.  So after making the custard I mixed two batches of cookies, froze my custard, then cut my finger so badly I had to stop.  I got a mini food chopper and while cleaning the blade I sliced my finger open.  So I was not able to make the cookies for the trip, but we had custard, so you really cannot be to upset right?

Another dark picture, but that is my sink full of ice cubes and the bowl of custard that I would stir every few minutes to cool it down.

 And I don't really know why I felt the need to share that.  I may be an attention whore; or something.

  Anyway, here is what I did.  I decided to make a 5 cup batch of custard, not even thinking how much my ice cream maker could hold, which it turns out is exactly 5 cups.  I must be lucky or something.  Anyway, here is the recipe I used and how I did it all.


Frozen Custard
By me, sort of, I followed the directions on the custard powder can too

-5 cups milk, I used 2%
-6 TBSP sugar
-6 TBSP custard powder mixed with a few TSP of cold milk
-vanilla bean paste to taste

This is me getting ready to use the ice cream maker, which, if I had bothered to read the instructions, may have worked much better.

So to start you need to scald your milk. That is fancy culinary talk for heating your milk without burning it.*

So heat your milk and sugar in a sauce pan until it boils, don't turn the heat up too high or the milk will burn.

*I seem to remember in school they taught us to rinse our sauce pan with cold water just before adding the milk to heat it.  Now it could be that I am crazy, or I was drunk at the time ( we had a whole class on wine tasting, so don't think I was a regular drunk, just on wine tasting days) or I could be right.  But I think it stops the milk fat from sticking to the pot or something and helps keep it from burning.  If you have a clue about this let me know, because those wine soaked classes are a blur.


  So once the milk had come to a boil, mix in the dissolved custard powder and whisk until it starts to thicken, which was about 3 minutes I think.  And it won't get thick thick, just like coating the back of a spoon thick.  I do think I should have either boiled it longer or used more custard powder.

  Then you want to put your custard into a bowl to chill.  You never put hot liquids into an ice cream maker, it would not work properly and could damage your maker.  Industrial ones may be different.  And if you have an industrial ice cream maker in your house, why are we not best friends yet? I would totally be your BFF and we could gossip and make ice cream and stuff.

See that, I didn't even check to see how much it would hold, but I was right on.  It's things like this that keep me from reading instructions, I get cocky and all "I know what I am doing!  I don't need no stinkin directions."  Then I screw up and don't know how to work the stupid ice cream maker and I want to hurt someone.

  Sorry, off track a little.   So I filled my kitchen sink with ice cubes and water and set my glass bowl with the hot custard in it. Now the proper way of doing this, which you obviously know I won't do as it requires more work, is to prop your bowl on something so that the water can get under the bowl.  Also you are supposed to leave the cold water running so it is constantly moving and forces the hot stuff to cool evenly.  I just did my thing and would stir the bowl every few minutes, it took about 40 minutes for it to be perfectly cold.

  At this point I realized the custard was not that thick, which means I screwed up somewhere,but I figured we are going to freeze it so not a big deal really.  But it looks boring and I wanted to fancy it up, so I mixed in some vanilla bean paste,  not sure how much, maybe 2 TBSPs.  Just enough so you could see the flecks and you could taste it a bit.

Aren't these cute?  I only got a few, but want more, and then I will never use them, so I better not.

  Then I poured it in my ice cream maker and started turning the handle. And nothing was happening, so after about 15 minutes I went on line and looked up the stupid thing and realized you had to turn it a few times then let it set for a few minutes then turn again.  So I think this may have contributed to the custard coming out sort of icy instead of fluffy and soft.

See how it looks nice and fluffy?  Well it wasn't but I won't tell you that.  Wait, what?  I just did, man I suck at this.

  So once it was set in the maker, I put the whole thing in the freezer to sit for a bit. I left if for an hour or so, then pulled it out and scooped it into the cups I had.  Then back into the freezer.  At work I set them up and we finally tried them.  It had hardened so much we had to microwave it for about 20 seconds so we could eat it. I don't know if it was because I had not thickened it enough and it was too watery, resulting in an icy form or my crappy ice cream maker. I choose to blame the ice cream maker, it really should work better.  And I sort of want one of those electric ones.  So either way, what ever.

I wanted enough for 12 servings, or else I would have just stuffed them full, and been sad when there not enough to go around.

 As for taste it was nice, and I liked it.  My friends at work said they liked it too, but you never know.  They have started to accuse me of trying to make them fat.  Which is sad because if they don't get fat I have to start working out to lose weight, and no one wants that. Least of all me.  Fatter co workers would make me look really thin.

  So all in all, not a bad recipe, I just have to try it again.