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How to Make Ice-Cream

While no food can truly be described as universal, ice cream is a treat enjoyed by just about everyone. From vanilla to the latest Ben & Jerry's creation, ice cream is consumed by the gallon by people from every continent and from every culture. Luckily, ice cream isn't that difficult to make at home and there are as many methods as there are flavours.
Best of all, making your own ice cream is simple, cheap and a great activity to do with kids, although you may not be able to accurately recreate that triple chocolate cookie dough swirl you had last week.

• Ingredients
• Preparation
• Let the Fun Begin!

Ingredients

Without a doubt, the most popular method for making your own ice cream is known as the plastic bag method.

It is quick, easy and fun for kids who have short attention spans (i.e., all children.) You'll need the following ingredients: a half cup of whole milk, a tablespoon of sugar, a quarter teaspoon of chocolate syrup or vanilla extract, ice, a plastic zipper bag and rock salt. You can get rock salt at any grocery store or you can venture to make it yourself. Simply heat some water and slowly bring it to a boil, adding as much salt as you can along the way. Once you have added as much salt as you can (that will still dissolve) bring the water to a boil. Turn the heat off and as the water cools, rock salt forms.

Preparation

Start by taking your milk, sugar and either the vanilla or chocolate syrup, and mixing them together in a bowl and then pouring the mixture inside a Ziploc bag. Take a larger, gallon-sized plastic bag and fill it with crushed ice and the rock salt, and then place the sealed bag containing the milk mixture inside the crushed ice bag.

Let the Fun Begin!

Now, this is the part your kids will love. Have them take the larger bag that contains the ice and shake it around gently. You don't want to get too excited, otherwise the smaller bag containing what is going to be ice cream might break open and ruin your fun. Have them shake the bag around for 10-15 minutes until the milk mixture begins to turn into ice cream.
You might want to have your kids wear gloves since your hands can get pretty cold during this process and you don't want to risk them dropping the bag.
After 15 minutes or so, remove the smaller bag and serve. The above ingredients will make about one serving, so if you are unveiling your ice cream mastery at a birthday party or some place where there are going to be a group of kids, you'll need one bag for each child, unless one happens to be lactose intolerant, then you probably want to find another treat for that child.

This is just one of the ways in which you can make ice cream at home. There are easily over a dozen more recipes out there, and as you get more experienced with creating your own frozen treats, you can begin to add different ingredients and combinations as you go.