The Story of the Cheapest Ice-Cream Ever
I’m not a big fan of ice-cream actually. As a grown-up I came to realize that it is too cold, too sweet, and too artificially flavored for me. There are phases of course, like that one time when I discovered Ben & Jerry’s pistachio ice-cream, right after i gave birth to my son, or when I found out you can buy Snickers ice-cream bar at the Dollar Store…
The other story is the childhood flavor of nostaligia. Like anything and everything ice-cream wasn’t easy to come by in Soviet Union. There was a solid belief that we had the best ice-cream in the world, along with the best chocolate, and ballet. Maybe ballet, ice-cream and chocolate were ok. Our propaganda posters show a great variety of styles and flavors, but I remember just a few: plombir — a rich vanilla ice-cream in a saggy wafer cup, chocolate glazed ice-cream on a stick called “Eskimo”, which is totally controversial now & here, but not then & there, fruit ice sold in the cardboard saggy cups with a wooden “ice-cream stick” as a spoon, and finally a brick of ice-cream, family size, to be shared at home with a family.
I rarely got to eat ice-cream outside, because Jewish parents & grandparents, which translates into flies! Germs! Dysentery! Apocalypses! My granparents would take out the brick from the freezer after a lunch of soup, main dish, and compot and ritualistically divide it between the three of us. Obviously a little melted was preferred because of the strep throat danger looming. Sometimes we all got a cup of vanilla. And soooometimes I’d get a wooden stick to indulge in my all the time favorite fruit ice. The proper name of the dessert was “fruit-berry ice-cream”, you can see it on the picture in a paper cup with a little lid on top. As far as I understand they were making it from the leftovers of the juice & jam industry. Whatever was squeezed, and boiled over, was then sifted, and mixed with sugar syrup, and frozen, Delish! To this dat, I’ll prefer the shaved ice, or frozen water-sugar-artificial coloring popsicle to the most decadent gelato.
We also had ice-cream parlors, in which you could get the very same vanilla ice-cream in a chilly metal bowl with different toppings: cookie crumbs, syrup or jam, nuts, or shaved chocolate. I had to replicate with my very own handmade ice-cream in a bowl found on eBay, almost authentic. Almost.
For years I’ve been toying with the idea of getting an ice-cream maker, simply because I like kitchen toys. I relize that buying a pint is always going to be cheaper and less hassle, but where is the fun in that? So during these long moths of isolation I finally budged and got an ice-cream maker. First recipes I made? Plombir, it turned out so-so, and “Fruitberry” which was precicely how I rembered it. Even my picky kids approved.
The next adventure was dulce de leche ice-cream. Which is even easier to make. We are blessed to be in Latin-American hub, and there is no shortage of ready-made dulce, but you can use home-made caramel as well. You can make both desserts without an ice-cream maker, and they will still be tasty, the machine simply makes the process easier. For this heat wave, and for the next, two ice-cream recipes.
FruitBerry Ice
Z Magic Ingredients
- About 1/2 cup fruit purée, I used a 12 oz bag of frozen mixed berries, plus some fresh raspberries. Can use any frozen or fresh fruit
- 1 4oz cup unsweetened apple sauce (113g)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 tbl spoons cornstarch
- 2 1/4 cups water
Z Method
- Defrost frozen fruit/berries
- Make syrup base: mix sugar & water (leave out 1/2 cup for dissolving cornstarch.)
- Bring to boil.
- Dissolve cornstarch in remaining 1/2 cup water and add to the boiling syrup.
- Wait till it thickens, it will happen quickly, take off the stove, cool down, cover with lid, or wrap, and refrigerate.
- Make the fruit base: blend defrosted or fresh fruit & berries. Sieve them through metal mesh, or fine colander. No seeds should remain, unless you like them in your ice-cream. You’ll end up with much less puree than original fruit.
- Once the syrup is thoroughly chilled (that’s the most annoying part), mix it with the fruit/berry purée.
- Mix in a cup of apple sauce.
- If using ice-cream maker pour the mixture into the machine and freeze 15–20 minutes according to instructions.
- If freezing without churning, you’ll have to do it manually. Put in freezer, and rake out every 30 minutes or so to mix and break the ice-particles.
- Ready to eat once frozen!
Dulce De Leche Ice-Cream
Z Magic Ingridients
- 1 can of ready Dulce De Leche (13.4oz / 380g). There are recipes of making your own from condensed milk, it’s pretty easy, just remember to chill it
- 1 pint (473mL) whipping cream. I find heavy cream to be too rich for me, so I use regular, experiment with what you like more
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract/sugar/whatever vanilla you have on hand, it’s optional anyway
Z Method
- Reserve 1/2 cup cream, whip the rest with vanilla with a mixer till soft peaks.
- I found it to bee too sweet for me, so I’ll use 1/2 can dulce the next time, but use 2/3 can of dulce de leche with remaining cream. Reserve some dulce for swirling.
- Mixed in dulce is easier to incorporate into whipped cream. Combine dulce de leche & cream carefully.
- If using ice-cream maker, put into the machine, and mix accroding to the instruction for 15–20 minutes. In the last 2–3 minutes add reserved dulce for nice swirls.
- If not using ice-cream maker, add reserved dulce, make a few rounds with the mixer to get the swirls in, refrigerate.
- Ready to be devoured, when frozen.
