Adventures in making Ice Cream

Blackberry Ice Cream

I have a confession to make; I've never been a fan of homemade Ice Cream.  I've always seen it as an inferior product to Ice Cream you can buy from the store, but it's something you must partake in for certain summer based events, like "4th of July" or Barbecues.  i.e. it's tradition, like eating turkey on Thanksgiving, that you endure whether you like it or not.  Of course, I should explain, most of my experiences with homemade Ice Cream are just a plain Vanilla that you consume right from the hand crank Ice Cream maker while it's still in a too-cold, icy slush form.  Never seemed to compare to the fluffy, creamy goodness that you find in your local supermarket freezer aisle.  However, since it is a traditional treat, like any good family man, I dutifully purchased an Ice Cream maker early in mine and Tracy's marriage and tried my hand at it.  The results were the icy slush I remember, the ice cream maker broke after 1 or 2 uses, and I washed my hands of the whole thing...until this year.

Around Cinco De Mayo (which we celebrate only as a reason to make and eat Mexican Food), I decided I wanted to try making Ice Cream again.  I'd received a couple of Mexican cookbooks with Ice Cream recipes in them (specifically "Hugo Ortega's Street Food of Mexico" and "Tacos, Tortas, and Tamales") and Memorial Day seemed like a good opportunity to give them a whirl.  First things first, I needed an Ice Cream maker.  It needed to be fairly inexpensive and we wanted one that would make small batches, since the more Ice Cream we have lying around the more we'll eat.  My other stipulation was it had to be something I could find locally since I made the decision to make Ice Cream only a couple of days from Cinco De Mayo (yeah, me and last minute decisions are very old friends).  Armed with those requirements, I hit the web and settled on the Hamilton Beach, 1.5 qt, Gel Ice Cream Maker which I was able to procure at my local Wal-Mart Supercenter.  It's small size easily fits our limited counter space and, at $24.99, it's price wasn't going to break our checking account.  I was a little concerned about this being a Gel type Ice Cream Maker, since I'd had less than satisfactory results with Gel packs you use in coolers, but it was literally only one of 2 choices of Ice Cream makers I could buy (the other being one that seemed to require it's own Ice Cream recipe packets, plus it was stupid looking), so I thought I'd give it a go.

Hamilton Beach Ice Cream Maker

Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

The first recipe I tried was a rum raisin recipe that came from the "Tacos, Tortas, and Tamales" book, and it failed spectacularly.  On the bright side, almost immediately I knew what I had done wrong; relying on the Gel container alone, and no ice, for solidifying the Ice Cream, it's critical that the Ice Cream mixture is chilled properly and the Gel chamber is completely frozen, and I'd failed to do either.  Undaunted, I stuck the Gel Container in our Chest Freezer for days and attempted a Cappuccino Gelato for Mother's Day, using a recipe that came with the Ice Cream maker.  This time, everything worked perfectly and Tracy enjoyed a delicious frozen treat on her special day.  Since then I've remade the Rum Raisin recipe, made a Chocolate Ice Cream for the kids, this Blackberry Ice Cream recipe, and a simple Vanilla, all of them competing well against everything but the best Ice Cream brands you find at the Supermarket.  My latest creation, a Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream, turned out particularly well and I'll be posting that recipe below.

Regardless of which recipe I make now, I follow 3 simple rules to ensure the Ice Cream comes out just right:

1. When not making Ice Cream, the Gel container lives in our Chest Freezer.  That way, the container stays at the necessary temperature for making Ice Cream.
2. Make the Ice Cream mixture the day before you plan to actually make Ice Cream.  This gives the mixture plenty of time to chill to an appropriate temperature.
3. Once the Ice Cream maker has completed its cycle, freeze the Ice Cream mixture for a few hours before serving.  This changes the Ice Cream from a soft consistency that easily breaks down into something more resembling Ice Cream that you buy.   

Now, all of this may be common sense to everyone except me, but they're things I definitely didn't know before I trying to make Ice Cream on my own and following these rules have helped me get consistent results.  Some other tips perhaps less obvious:

Chilling a batch of mixture for the next day.

• I suggest using a silicone spatula to assist in transferring Ice Cream from the Gel container since it's interior wall scratches easily.
• We've found that 16 ounce Cool Whip containers are perfect for storing a single batch of Ice Cream, so save those when you can.
• I keep a plastic jar reserved (in image to the right) just for chilling a batch of Ice Cream mixture, so that I don't have to worry about a container being available when I need it.  Plus, the opening in the Ice Cream maker where you pour in the mixture is pretty narrow, so using a jar likes this makes it easier to pour the mixture without making a mess.  The one I use was originally a large jar of Pasta sauce we bought at Wal-Mart.

There are a few of sources for Ice Cream recipes that I'd like to share.  "She Wears Many Hats" has some interesting recipes to try like "Lemon Pie" and "Blueberry Pie" ice cream.  "Annies Eats" has the "Blackberry Ice Cream" recipe we tried and also pointed me to a recipe book, "Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones", that I'm dying to try.  The book contains recipes from the Chefs at "Bi-Rite Creamery", a popular San Francisco Ice Cream shop that emphasizes using the best ingredients in interesting frozen concoctions like "Balsamic Strawberry" or "Honey Lavender".  Finally, www.foodnetwork.com is, of course, I great source for all types of recipes and that's where I located the "Pumpkin Pie" Ice Cream recipe I recently made.

The original "Pumpkin Pie" Ice Cream recipe can be found here, but the one I made is slightly tweaked based off of reviewers comments on the original recipe and the size of the batch we need for our Ice Cream maker; the original recipe makes more than a quart so is more suitable for Ice Cream makers bigger than ours.   The recipe I ended up using is as follows:

Ingredients

• 2 cups Half-and-Half
• 1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/4 cup Light Brown Sugar
• 1/2 a 15 ounce can of Pumpkin
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground Ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and bring temperature up to 170 degrees, allowing sugars to dissolve completely.  Stir occasionally to ensure ingredients combine completely and are not sticking to the bottom of the pan.
2. Turn off burner and allow mixture to cool to room temperature.  I still occasionally stir during this period to ensure everything stays incorporated.
3. Pour mixture into a container with a lid and chill overnight.
4. Next day, make ice cream according to Ice Cream maker's manufacturer directions.

NOTE:  Original recipe is based off of a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Alton Brown and requires using Vanilla beans.  I opted for Vanilla extract instead since the beans we had were old enough to be petrified.  If you'd prefer to using Vanilla beans, I suggest adding the vanilla to just the dairy and sugars and straining the mixture before adding the other ingredients.  The original recipe also doesn't combine the pumpkin and spices until the day you're making the Ice Cream.   I don't recommend this as adding the pumpkin and spices to the saucepan ensures the pumpkin and spice flavors are thoroughly infused into the warm Ice Cream mixture.

The first Pudding Cookie Experiment

Tracy regularly sends me links of different food recipes she comes across and, one that we intrigued me recently, involved creating something called "pudding cookies".  The idea is, adding instant pudding mix to a cookie batter creates a cookie that stays soft for days.  Wait, what?  Do you realize how many different instant pudding flavors you can find at your local supermarket?  This opened a lot of opportunities to indulge my inner cookie monster so, the next time I headed to the store, I picked up several different flavors to experiment with.

The first "pudding cookie" experiment I wanted to try was to create a cookie using pistachio nuts and pistachio instant pudding mix.  I was intrigued with the idea of creating a cookie with a mix of sweet and salty flavors.  The base pudding cookie recipe I used came from kraft's recipes site, substituting my instant pudding mix and pistachio nuts for the chocolate chips (I'll post full recipe and instructions below).  Two things I did for this batch may have made this experiment less successful than I hoped.  First, I couldn't find chopped Pistachio nuts so put them in our food chopper as I thought the smaller pieces would work better than adding full pistachios to the batter.  Unfortunately, the chopper turned some of the nuts into dust so I had to dump the nuts into a sieve before I could add them, which resulted in much of the salt being lost from the nuts.  Second, I noticed the green coloring of the pudding mix lightened considerably so I toyed with adding so green food coloring to give them a more distinct look, but chose not to do so.

The green in this picture is actually more distinct than the actual cookie dough

This resulted in a cookie with only a faint greenish tint to it, so I'll definitely add coloring the next time I make these.

I know what you're thinking; "Forget what they looked like, how did they taste?"  While not what I imagined, they resulted in an interesting cookie that I was overall satisfied with.  The consistency was as soft as you'd expect from a "Pudding Cookie" but the flavor had less of a distinct Pistachio taste and reminded me more of a Pecan Sandie, which just happens to be one of my favorite cookies.  So, all in all, I'd have to call this one a success but will be making a couple of tweaks the next time I make these.

Pistachio Pudding Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of butter (softened or at room temperature)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup of Brown Sugar (packed)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups flour (I used all-purpose)
• 1 package instant Pistachio Pudding mix (3.9 ounce)
• 1 cup Pistachios (I suggest using salted, shelled Pistachios and leaving them whole).
• Green Food Coloring - add a drop at a time until color you want is reached (totally optional but I'd recommend this step; otherwise coloring is just a little strange).

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line one or two cookie sheets with parchment paper then set aside.
2. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with mixer until light and fluffy.  Add dry pudding mix; beat until well incorporated.  Add eggs and baking soda; mix well.  Gradually beat in flour until well blended.  OPTIONAL:  add in green food coloring, a drop at a time, until you get the color you want consistently throughout the dough.  Stir in Pistachio nuts.
3. Drop approximate tablespoon sizes of dough, 2 inches apart, on cookie sheet.  We generally use a cookie dough scoop similar to this one when making cookies.
4. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until edges are lightly browned.  Cool for 1 minute on sheets and then move to wire racks to cool completely.

(NOTE:  this experiment originally took place on July 8, 2013)

Where we're headed...

So, in May of 2012, I quit my Information Technology job of almost 16 years.  This is something I had wanted to do for most of my career there as I was working for a company that I never really felt comfortable at.  For all the vitriol I've spewed over the years about my employer, I'm going to leave it at that, since I must accept my share of the blame.  i.e. I was at bad for that company as it was for me.  In the last five or 6 years of my time there, I was increasingly miserable, hating every day that I worked there and beginning to hate myself for feeling stuck there and feeling that I had let myself down for ever accepting the job.  I had lost a lot of perspective no longer could see how much good being there had done for me and my family.  Whatever their faults, my company had taken really good care of us and provided me a fairly substantial income.  However, a day came where I was completely filled with despair at the thought of working there any longer so I knew it was time to go.  I turned in my two weeks, said my goodbyes, and started thinking about what I was going to do next.

And that was the problem.  I really had no idea what I was going to do next.  My original plan was to take a couple of weeks off and start looking for a new job.  8 weeks later and I had made no strides in securing another position.  I was enjoying my time off, and resistant to seeing it ended, but not really sure why.  For one thing, the feelings of self loathing I thought most associated with my former job (to be honest, I've carried some amount of self loathing with me my entire life, but I had come to believe the stronger feelings were tied to my former employer) were still present.  I was still letting myself down as well as letting down Tracy and the kids.  I mean, it's not like we could afford for me to retire and subsist entirely on income Tracy was making.  Money we had from my former job was running out  so my "retirement" had a very short shelf life attached to it.  Reluctantly, I updated my resume and started seeing what I could forward to.  As offers began to come in, I picture started forming that helped describe my reluctance to find a new job:  as an IT worker, I had failed to secure any expertise in any one technology and the marketplace was no longer interested (if it ever was) in "jack-of-all-trades" employees like me.  Ok then, NOW what was I going to do.  I left a well paying job I hated without the skills to obtain a new one.  This was not necessarily true, as there are ways I could have parlayed my experience into another position, but these were the thought processes that I was having at the time that helped nudge me into the next realization about myself.

More time passed as offers came into my email inbox that I either discarded immediately, or occasionally pursued only to have them go nowhere.  i.e. no recruiter ever contacted me again about any position once they talked with me and discovered my lack of expertise.  I began to see myself as unemployable and started preparing myself for the eventuality of trying to get my old back.  During this time, summer had slipped away and we were now heading into fall.  I knew that I had to get a job within the next few months or we were going to be in serious trouble, yet I still was making no move to do so.  I had to start talking with Tracy about this before I destroyed our lives, and that's when I started understanding what the real problem was and what I really wanted to do.  I wasn't an unemployable, ex-IT worker; I was someone who never wanted to work in IT again and not sure I ever did.  IT is something I fell into, during my career, not something I chose and, while it had brought me some great satisfaction, I couldn't bear the thought of continuing that route.

What I started understanding about myself is that, I wasn't going to be content just finding another job, I wanted to find my passion, find what I want to do with my life.  What I wanted was to go back to school.  I had wasted my time in college, not knowing what I wanted to do with my life then, and ever since the choices I had made were about securing jobs and having a safe income.  I was settling, you see, choosing the safe route in life not having dreams and definitely no chasing them.  I felt it was the only way.  I blew my chance at college so this was all I could hope for.  Talking with Tracy opened my eyes and, honestly, I really should've have considered this more seriously since I'd helped her get through college within the last 4-5 years.  Tracy knew what it was I wanted and was waiting for me to come to the same conclusion.  Internally, I just couldn't see it.  "I'm 49", I'd tell myself, "I cant possibly hope to go to college at this point in my life, I'm too old".  However, I finally came to the realization that I continue the same way I had been going, or I could try and make the rest of my life more fulfilling than it had been to date.  I could continue playing it safe or, for the first time in more than two decades, I could take a risk and go for something better.

So, that's what we're going to do.  I've signed up for classes at our local community college and will be starting classes the 14th of January.  "Wait!", you might ask, "what about the money that's running out?".  Well, once you're willing to truly consider options for your life that you thought were impossible, suddenly you start seeing how you can actually accomplish them.  Without going into detail, Tracy and I have came up with a plan that will at least get us started on this journey.  From there, we'll just have to see and trust that our needs will be met.  It's scary, sure, but I'm excited for the first time in many, many years.  You might also be wondering what degree I'm pursuing but it's not something I really want to discuss just yet as I don't want to just lock myself into one course.  If I'm going to find my passion, I'm going to do this right and leave myself open to possibilities I haven't considered yet.  However, a passion is certainly building in my life right now and is what I'll be exploring first.  To those that know me, this may be apparent now, and if not, should be apparent to all in the days, weeks, months, years ahead.  To our Christian brothers and sisters, I ask that you pray for us as I feel your prayers will be sorely needed on this journey.  To others, I just ask that you keep us in your thoughts and send any "Well Wishes" our way.

To those who've made it this far, I appreciate you slogging through this long read.  Trying to simply state our goals didn't seem appropriate, as I have to assume that my decision to quit my job was frightening to those that care about us.  I felt that I owed you this explanation so that you would not think that we were making a trivial decision.  I hope that all of you are as excited about this new step in our lives as Tracy and I are.