Kid Friendly Homemade Ice Cream

So, I've jumped on the band wagon. Kicking and screaming, as if I need something else to get my attention, I've been pinned. Pinned to Pinterest! The website where you can plan your make believe wedding, your make believe kids, your make believe house, and all of it's make believe furnishings! My house looks nothing like any of those pictures on there, but it gives me great inspiration. There are several places I draw my inspiration from, my family, my friends, my kids, Cupcake Project, and many other wonderful sites on the web, this one is no different.

After a long day in the kitchen making this and this, I sat down in my living room and picked up what dear hubby thinks is my new extremity, my Droid, and brought up Pinterest. As I was scrolling through the pictures, picking my favorites and repinning, I came across one for Homemade Ice Cream in a Ziploc bag. Oh I had to try this. I summonsed my kitchen help, a.k.a. Aiden, my 6 year old, and off to the kitchen we went. After 8 minutes, and 6 frost bitten hands (after dear hubby had to join in) we had ice cream!! And really good ice cream at that.

Now to my 6 year old ice cream is ice cream, no matter what taste, shape, or color. Any will do. For my dear hubby, ice cream extraordinaire, this ice cream just didn't make the cut. He felt it had too greasy of a texture (I'm sure this happened because I used heavy cream rather than half & half). I fell somewhere right in the middle.

 I'm usually not a plain vanilla fan, chocolate is more my speed, but this vanilla ice cream was good. And it was even better when I added just a dab of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup. So how did we do this you ask? It's easy! Here's how!

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

2 TB sugar
1 cup half & half (or light cream)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup coarse salt or table salt(I used canning salt)
ice
gallon-sized Ziploc bag
quart-sized Ziploc bag





Place sugar, half & half, and vanilla in a quart-sized bag and seal well.




Fill gallon-size bag 1/2 full with ice, add salt. Place quart-size bag inside gallon-size bag and seal bag.




Shake bags around for 5 minutes (If you use heavy cream you will need to shake it about 8 minutes)




Remove quart-size bag from gallon bag, rinse with cold water and serve!

As you can see, we ended up using towels to hold onto our bags, it makes your hands really, really cold. But a little frost bite on your hands is worth it for some pretty tasty ice cream! It's that easy! And you can store any leftovers in the freezer (that is if you have any leftovers)!  I think this would make a great treat for a kid's birthday party, and I'm sure you could add in any kind of toppings or flavors you'd like once it was frozen. The possibilities are endless!!

So there you have it! A pin that you really can achieve!!