We All Scream!

It’s hot out today, an unusual thing for this summer in North Idaho. There is a bit of a breeze and, in the shade, it’s rather pleasant; pleasant enough to sit on the deck with my laptop and write about ice cream.

Ice cream is a magically food. Just the thought of it elicits wonderful memories of summer, fun, and relaxation. Ice cream can lift your spirits when you’re feeling bad or be the crowning jewel on a fantastic day. It has the ability to cool off hot summer days and warm up a cold winter night. And it does it all with just a few simple ingredients.

You only really need heavy cream, sugar and milk to make ice cream (although that would be quite boring). The cream lends fat to the mixture, which is most of what gives ice cream its creamy texture; but frozen cream by itself is rock hard. Adding sugar makes the frozen cream softer; but it lowers the freezing point of the mixture below the freezing point of water, making it impossible to freeze with just ice. Milk dilutes the milk-fat in the cream and adds water to the concoction, which allows more ice crystals to form while the cream is freezing. These ice crystals give the ice cream its solidity; but, if not frozen at the right speed and with the right agitation, can turn nirvana into gritty disappointment.

Obviously, ice cream isn’t as simple as it seems; that may be why it took centuries to perfect it. The first frozen desserts were made of ice mixed with fruit or fruit juice (kind of like the OJ snow cones my brother and I loved to make the first day it snowed). By the 13th century, Arabs had not only figured out how to incorporate milk as the main ingredient in their frozen treats but they also discovered that adding salt to ice lowered the freezing temperature of water. If water freezes at a lower temperature and you put that super cooled water in contact with a cream and sugar solution, which needs to be super cold to freeze, you discover ice cream.

During the following centuries, the French and Italians got hold of this wonderful new treat and took it to new heights. The French added egg yolks to create a silkier texture while reducing the amount of milk-fat. (They did have a version that negated the savings of milk-fat and replaced it with egg fat; glace au beurre (ice butter) was made with 20 yolks per pint of cream! )

The Italians were more restrained with their egg use but still use some to create gelato. Gelato has a lower milk-fat content but higher sugar content than ice cream. The added sugar acts like an anti-freeze so gelato doesn’t get as hard as ice cream. And gelato is not churned vigorously. Without the extra air that is incorporated during churning, gelato ends up denser.

With all these advances there were still hurdles to leap before just anyone could have ice cream whenever they wanted. Even if you know that stirring a cream and sugar mixture in a salt and ice bath gives you ice cream, you still need ice. And, before refrigeration, you needed a lot of resources to have access to ice in the middle of summer. Nero had a whole legion of slaves to climb the nearest mountain and gather snow. If you didn’t have mountains nearby, you had to be landed gentry like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson (who were both known to favor the sweet treat, as was Dolly Madison, of course) with plenty of room for icehouses to store ice harvested in winter so you could churn up a batch in the heat of the summer.

The mid 1800s saw the invention of the two devices that would put ice cream on every spoon: the hand cranked ice cream maker and refrigeration. The ice cream maker made it easy to mix up large batches of ice cream with the right consistency. Refrigeration made ice affordable and available year round.

Once these two inventions were in place, industrial production took over and ice cream took a downward spiral for a while. Powdered milk replaced fresh milk to make ice cream lower fat and cheaper. Stabilizers preserved the smooth consistence for long periods of time in freezers with inconsistent temperatures. Artificial colors and flavors made for cheaper but flashier products. And corn syrup replaced sugar to make ice cream thicker (and, of course, cheaper).

Luckily, in the 1980s companies like Ben and Jerry’s and Haagen-Daz rediscovered real ice cream and we now have lots of premium and super-premium ice cream to choose from.
But not one of the super premium ice creams or gelatos available today come close to fresh churned. And now that it’s finally hot out, there’s no excuse not to mix up a batch.


Raspberry Ice Cream
Makes 1 quart

Our raspberry bush is going to go crazy in the next week or so (we’ve already picked a quart and there are so many green berries yet to ripen it’s overwhelming). What better way to show off fresh summer fruit than a batch of home made ice cream?

3 c. raspberries, washed
½ c. sugar, plus more to taste
fresh squeezed lemon juice (optional)
1 ½ c. whole milk (preferably not ultra pasteurized)
1 ½ c. heavy cream (preferably not ultra pasteurized)

Sprinkle raspberries lightly with sugar. Taste for sweetness level. Add lemon juice if too sweet, more sugar if too tart. Mix together the ½ c sugar, milk and cream. Mix in the fruit if you want to have them well dispersed in the ice cream or wait until the milk mixture is partially frozen to keep large pieces of the berries intact.
Pre-chill the mixture (with or without the fruit) in the freezer in several small containers. Stir occasionally until the mixture reaches 30F. Place all of the mixture into an ice cream maker and churn constantly. The fast you churn, the more air you will incorporate. For a denser ice cream, churn at a steady pace. For a lighter more voluminous ice cream, give it some speed.
Fold in the raspberries (if you’ve reserved them) as the mixture becomes semi-solid.
Once churning becomes too difficult, harden the mixture in the freezer in several small pre-chilled containers (if you can wait that long!). I probably don’t need to tell you this, but eat it quickly. Fresh ice cream doesn’t store well.