Root Beer Float Slushie

Well it has been pretty warm around these here parts. Some might even say TOO warm, but it is definitely warm enough to find some new refreshing treats to help everyone stay cool out there. My girls love root beer floats and I was wondering if we could use our ice cream maker to create some kind of root beer float slushie.  Fast forward to a few ingredients later, and I think we found ourselves a winner!

Cool, creamy and frosty, behold the root beer float slushie

So all you need is your Cuisinart 2-quart electric ice cream maker, and a chilled inner canister.  You will need the following three ingredients:

4 1/2 cups of your favorite root beer
1 cup of heavy cream
3/4  cup of sugar

Pour the 4 1/2 cups of root beer into a measuring cup.

Add the 1 cup of heavy cream and the 3/4 cup of sugar into a larger bowl. Once they are mixed together and the sugar is dissolved, pour the entire concoction into your chilled inner ice cream canister for your machine, place the stirring paddle, place the lid on securely, and turn on the machine for 22 min.

Churn baby Churn!

Once finished, turn the machine off and start scooping the frosty goodness into the nearest glass...

The consistency of a Slurpee, the awesome taste of a root beer float

The heavy cream and sugar have mixed together during the spin time, to give it that mock ice cream flavor, and the carbonation in the root beer stays bubbly and fun.  Hand these off to some near by small fry and you will have some happy smiles... Oh, here are some small fry now.

They lovely ladies had almost finished theirs before I could even snap a picture

Here's some close ups of our root beer-y goodness

Frothy, root beer and cream flavors come shining through

We just loved the way this turned out.

You know you want a root beer slushie right this minute, don't you!

Oh and by they way, after we had our fill, we still had a bit of this deliciousness left over.  So I put it in a container with a lid and put the whole thing in the freezer for later, when hubby and my other daughter would be home.   The thing that makes this different than freezing ice cream, is that it never really hardens into a scoop-able ice cream, the soda factor makes it freeze almost as is.  So when they came back later, I could just scoop and scrape out more into the cup and it still had the texture of a slushie.  
Now if you are saying to yourself, darn, this looks delicious, but I don't have me one of them fancy 2-quart ice cream makers.  My question to you is... WHY?  You need one of these handy dandy machines, like now.  We made ours a gift for my hubby for father's day three years ago, and we have made so many homemade ice creams and treats using this bad boy since.  I seriously have not bought ice cream now in years.  We make it fresh, we know all the ingredients that go into it (often using seasonal fruit and fruits from our own garden), and we are always experimenting with new ideas and flavors, and now refreshing beverages. Hence, the birth of the root beer slushie.    
Enjoy!!

Cherry Cordial Ice Cream

A good husband knows what his wife favorite things are.  For me, one of my all time favorite combinations is cherries and chocolate together.  Wouldn't you know it for our anniversary in February I saw hubby come home with both a bag of mini chocolate chips, a jar of maraschino cherries, and some heavy cream.  What are we making I ask with great anticipation?!  He replies, I want to try and make you a cherry cordial ice cream.  (Be still my heart).  I knew there was a reason I married him 12 years ago.  So we cracked out our ice cream machine and decided to give it a whirl (by the way, the best part of this recipe is that you can also make this even if you don't have an ice cream maker check out variation recipe at the end).  So I give you: cherry cordial ice cream!

Cherry cordial ice cream - DIVINE!

We happened across this recipe on the interwebs and only modified it slightly.  You will need:
(recipe for a 2-quart ice cream machine)

3 cups heavy cream
1 cup 2% or whole milk
1 (14oz) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 (10oz) jar of maraschino cherries (drained and chopped)
1 cup mini chocolate chips
2 teaspoons almond extract
few drops of red food coloring (optional)

First gather your ingredients:

mini chocolate chips work better in an ice cream machine than the regular full sized ones

The original recipe called for 2 cups of heavy cream, 2 cups of half-and-half.  We did not have half-and-half (which by the way means half milk/half cream), so we just made our own.  Three cups of heavy cream and one cup of regular milk is the same as the original recipe.

and you thought you would never use fractions in real life...

Pour your milk ingredients above into your bowl and then add 1 (14oz) can of sweetened condensed milk.  You will not add any sugar to this recipe.  The sweetened condensed milk is the sweetener for the whole thing.

Mmmm thick and creamy

Blend every thing together.  There is an option to add a bit of extra "pop" factor and add a few drops of red food coloring.  We also added 2 teaspoons of almond extract here (the original recipe said 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 almond) but it's the almond extract that give the cherry flavor a huge boost!

pretty in pink

Drain your (10oz) jar of maraschino cherries carefully

and chopped them up finely.  I used a Pampered Chef hand chopper.  Also I do not know why the original recipe did not make use of some of the left over cherry juice from the jar.  I followed the recipe this time and left it out, next time I might add some in.

No cherries were harmed in the making of this ice cream... oh wait... never mind

Next, pour in the wet ingredients to your frozen inner canister and let the ice cream machine run for about 20 minutes.  Save the adding in of the cherries and the mini chocolate until the 20 minute mark and then let it churn for another 3-5 minutes at the end.

To every thing churn churn churn... there is a season churn churn churn

And what goes perfect with cherries you ask?  How about chocolate.

and a time for every ice cream... under heaven.

After that, pour the finished ice cream (which is currently in a soft serve state) into a container you can store in the freezer to harden up.  We usually let soft ice cream set up anywhere from 6 hours to over night before scooping into bowls or cones.  But look what you get as reward for all of your patience.

Behold: Cherry cordial ice cream.  If you have a spoon near by try not to harm your monitor

Now according to the original recipe, you can make this with OUT an ice cream machine.  That's right, I'm thinking of you fine peeps who have not jumped aboard the very delectable homemade ice cream maker band wagon... (yet)!  Here are the alternate directions:

Refrigerator-Freezer Method: Omit half-and-half. Whip whipping cream. In large bowl, combine EAGLE BRAND®, 1/2 cup chopped maraschino cherries, 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, 2 teaspoons vanilla (which I would change to almond extract); mix well. Fold in whipped cream. Pour into 9x5-inch loaf pan or other 2 quart container. Cover. Freeze 6 hours or until firm. 

So this ice cream turned out to have a very light cherry taste (the cherry lover in me almost wanted more).  The cherry bits and chocolate chunks really helped add to the flavor.  Having made many other home made ice creams, this was the first time we have used sweetened condensed milk as the sweetener.  It seemed to me to mute the cherry flavor.  If I make this recipe again I will try adding a cup of sugar and some extra milk and see if that helps boost the flavor.  All in all a very good attempt at our very first cherry cordial ice cream.

Enjoy!

 

Blackberry Ice Cream

I think the best thing my hubby did after making our little raised rock garden in the backyard, was to train some wild blackberry bushes to grow over our back fence.  These last few years we have really been enjoying our mini harvest of berries.  We've made cobblers, crisps, blackberry pancakes, blackberry syrup, and of course, blackberry ice cream with our Cuisinart 2-quart ice cream maker.  There is just something simple and magical that happens when sweet cream and berries get together.

Beautiful blackberry ice cream

I searched the interwebs high and low for an easy recipe.  It seemed every single one I found had eggs in it.  Some kind of eggs or egg yokes and tempering.  Tempering is the scariest cooking term I can think of.  It's the process of mixing a hot cream liquid in with eggs.  Do it right, and you have a heavenly custard.  Do it wrong, and you've got sweet scrambled eggs.  Maybe I will one day be brave enough to attempt my all time favorite dessert creme brule' and blog about it for you (a thought that makes my stomach twist in knots). For now I looked at all the online recipes and immediately thought, I don't want to ruin a beautiful bunch of blackberries with scrambled eggs.  So I decided to pretend these were blueberries and make almost the same ice cream recipe I did for those, which turned out fabulous!!  First you want to pick some blackberries, about 4-5 cups worth.

backyard blackberries at their finest

Wash and rinse them well.  We like to lay them out on a few paper towels and pat them dry.  Next dump four heaping cups of blackberries into a pot.  Add 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 2 Tablespoons of water, and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon. (Printable recipe found at the end of post).

I did not have a lemon in the blueberry recipe but all the online blackberry recipes seemed to have it, so we added it.

Turn the stove to medium heat and stir until the the ingredients combine and the berries start to form a sauce.

You don't want a hard boil here, just a nice simmering to reduce the berries and sugar to a sauce

To help the process along, I got out our potato masher and squished the berries to help them burst.

Why is smashing berries so satisfyingly therapeutic?  I'm not sure, but I like it.

After about 10-15 minutes you will be left with a blackberry syrup of sorts.  The berries have broken down into a lovely rich sauce, and let me tell you, your house will smell completely fabulous.

bubble bubble little sauce

While your sauce is reducing, find a wire mesh strainer and place it over a bowl of about the same size.

When your berry mixture is ready, pour it very slowly into this strainer.  Blackberries have very large seeds (unlike raspberries or blueberries) and this sauce is going to have to be strained to make the ice cream texture more enjoyable.

Oh and by the way, this stuff can get splattery real quick so be careful and pour slow

Now you want to use a spatula and start pushing the berry mixture through the strainer.  All the seeds will be left behind and the blackberry syrup will drip down to the bowl below.

Whoa!  Look at all the seeds left behind! Imagine picking all of those out of your teeth! Ug.

Now if you peek into the bowl below, you will have a smooth, silky, blackberry syrup that is packed with flavor.  Note: You do not have to add any more sugar or anything else to this recipe later.  All the sweetness is added when making this sauce.

Feel free to take a little taste here... you've earned it.

Now you are going to want this mixture completely cool.  We put this in the fridge for a few hours until it was nice and cold.  The next step is to add this sauce to the milk and cream, and if it's still warm it will change the texture of the ice cream.  Okay, so some time has passed, In another bowl you want to add the 3 cups heavy cream and 2 cups of milk.  Pour the chilled blackberry syrup mixture into the cold milk mixture.

Stir gently together until it changes from swirl colors...

The girls love to watch this part

To this lovely shade of purple/mauve

Where the blueberry sauce turned a vibrant purple, the blackberry sauce has some lovely shades of pink in it

Since everything is chilled and ready to go, you can now pour the ice cream mixture into your inner canister of the ice cream machine.  We chill our canister for 12-24 hours before, so it's nice and cold.

Set your timer for about 22 minutes and soon you will have something that looks like this:

Soft serve blackberry ice cream... you can eat it now or send it into a deep freeze for scoopable fun

We like to transfer this back to the 2-quart Pyrex bowl, cover with some plastic wrap, and freeze for at least 5-6 hours, sometimes longer.  When you have it to a solid, frozen consistency, then scoop away and add it to cones, bowls, open mouths of children standing near by...

Blackberry perfection

We loved making up our own recipe for this ice cream.  Smooth, creamy, and the blackberry fruit flavor really comes through.  Here's a link to a printable version of the recipe.  Enjoy!

Peach Mango Slurpee

We are still trying new ways to use our 2-quart ice cream maker.  We made root beer Slurpee/slushies with much success and it says in the directions you can use any liquid.  You can even use sugar free mixes such as crystal light or lemonade.  We are not Kool Aid drinkers are here, but we were at the store the other day and I though the girls could pick some flavors to try for the sole purpose of making some slushies.  Hey for $.10 cents a pack you can't go wrong there.  I thought the best flavor to try would be Peach Mango, mostly because it was lighter in color, and therefore, in my mind, less likely to stain gaint fake cherry smiles on their faces or worse, never come out of the carpet.

Cool and refreshing peach mango slushies

Simply make a pitcher of the Kool Aid like normal.  Pour 6 cups of the liquid into the pre-chilled inner canister (we freeze ours overnight or at least 12 hours so it is nice and cold), and turn the machine on.

A mango peach pool of deliciousness

After 20 minutes your drinks will be ready.  See how much it slushed up?

Did I mention you can slush up adult-type drinks in this same manner?

After that, gather your glasses and find a few straws.  (For the kids we used sippie type cups that came with lids and straws, great for the no spill factor).  Then high-tail it outside (especially if it's still nice and warm like it has been here the last month) and have a little treat.  Again, you can also make sugar free versions of this for guilt free enjoyment.  An alternative to this if you don't have an ice cream maker is to freeze the juice into ice cube trays, then throw them into the blender with a little extra juice, and pour into glasses.

I always think this frozen concoction is going to turn back into a liquid the second it gets out of the machine, but this stayed nice and "slurpeefied" for the 20 minutes it took to leisurely enjoy it.

Two peach mango slurpees - a nice little treat.  One for me, one for you!

So all in all I think this turned out pretty good.  The peach mango flavor was rather "light" in comparison to the slap your grandma grape or cherry flavors of yesteryear.  I can't even remember the last time I had Kool Aid, but this was a great way to make a special treat out of it.

Blueberry Ice Cream

What do you do with seasonal fruit?  Make a cobbler?  Make a pie?  Yes and yes again.  Well if you happen to have an 2-Quart ice cream maker you can also make ice cream with it!  The best most blueberriest, the most purple ice cream you've ever done seen.  Willie Wonka himself would be proud of this ice cream, check it out!

Did I mention my favorite color is purple?  This is the most lovely shade of ice cream I've ever seen

All you will need are your regular ice cream ingredients plus fresh blueberries.

3 cups blueberries (washed, de-stemmed)
1 1/2 cups of sugar
2 Tablespoons water
2 3/4 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cup whole milk (or 2%)

Printable recipe found here: 

Wash and drain them. Carefully go over them and check for any wayward stems or leaf debris.

Blue berries were very welled named

We are essentially going to cook these berries down into a sauce.  To do that place the 3 cups of washed berries in a medium to large pot on the stove top.  Add the 1 1/2 cups of sugar and 2 Tbsp of water to the pot.

  
Next turn the heat on medium and keep stirring until the berries start to burst and a sauce starts to form.

It always amazes me how deep purple blueberries get when you cook them.

Keep cooking them as they reduce down into a thicker sauce, at least 10-15 minutes or more.  If you want you can "smash" some of the berries with the back of your spatula.  Once it gets thicker and most of the berries are pulverized and the sugar is dissolved, you can pour it into a bowl to cool.

I used my 2 quart pyrex glass bowl.

There is some mention in other blueberry ice cream recipes to now strain this mixture though a small mesh sieve before putting it in the fridge to cool.  This is entirely up to you.  Straining it will eliminate all skins and seeds.  We decided we wanted chunks of fruit here and there so we left everything in.  Once the berries are completely cooled down, you can add your dairy products.  Pour in 1 1/2 cup whole milk, and 2 3/4 cup heavy cream.

Still loving this color, it's fabulous!

Stir the ingredients gently together until you get everything incorporated.

A luscious lovely lavender concoction

After this you are going to want to chill this mixture over night.  Boo, right!  It sadly has to be absolutely cold before you put it in the ice cream machine.  This is quite the bummer because right now your whole house smells like warm blueberry sauce and you will be sorely tempted to pour a big glass of this stuff and drink it like a milkshake.  However I promise, you will be much rewarded the next day when you dive into this delectable treat if it gets a chance to chill first. 

This is how we normally do this ice cream, time wise (it takes 24 hours total).

1. Make the blueberry sauce in the evening.  Let it cool and add dairy, chill over night.
2. The next morning, make the ice cream in the machine and chill all day
3. Ice cream will be fully scoopable after dinner time.  :)

Ok so your ice cream mixture has chilled over night (and remember your empty ice cream chamber has also been freezing overnight).  Now all you have to do is pour it into the machine.  No other things to add, no sugar.  Everything for this recipe (including the sugar) is added at the beginning.  Sweet.

Set a timer for 22 minutes and let the machine do its job.

Swirl baby swirl!

I've said it before, but we often will put a kitchen mitt over the top hole to help keep things really cold in there.

Not sexy, but I want to believe this helps keep the ice cream extra cold during the process.

After that, scoop the batch out into a glass bowl (I used that 2-quart pyrex from before), cover and place in the freezer for 6-8 hours.  Then serve in bowls or fun sugar cones.  My kids could not get over the color of this ice cream.  I loved it, no dyes, just the natural blueberry goodness coming through.

A delicious and beautiful blueberry treat!!

The flavor of this ice cream was spectacular.  Rich, creamy and fruity at the same time.  Like blueberry pie a la mode. I bet this would probably work with other fruits as well.  Let me assure you we will try them all and report back to you soon.  Enjoy!