the endurance expedition

It appears I'm not the only one trying their hand at making ice cream this week.

I was delighted to learn that la femme behind chocolateandzucchini was presented an ice cream maker for her birthday. So over-joyed was she, that she pretty immediately whipped-up a sorbet mangue. Exciting stuff as it calls for no dairy and with the heat and humidity, who needs dairy? I think I may have to adapt her adapted recipe, seeing that I've got a few mangoes laying around that I'm sure are ripe...

And it seems Nigel Slater's going to be sharing some ice cream recipes in this Sunday's Observer Magazine. In the interim check out what The Guardian is running as a sneak spoonful. It features tons of ice cream talk: links to recipes, photos and blogs written about the gooey, creamed stuff.

I realize that I dropped the ball and failed to report on my ice creaming experimentation! Here I will make a quick attempt at answering all of those burning questions you may have.

So, did I make a batch of ice cream after work Monday night? Yes.

Did my newish and oddly simple ice cream maker work? Oddly, yes and very quickly!

Did I freeze a blend of fruits and herbs? Make a pizza ice cream as threatened? No. I made a simple blueberries and cream concoction.

Was the corn starch ice cream indeed creamy? It was! Although, honestly, there were some patches of icy cream. My ice cream froze really rapidly and seeing as mine is a simple, no-frills machine, I wasn't able to blend it as well as I would have liked. The blade was almost instantly frozen, think Shakleton's Endurance, into that mass of gooey, blueberry goodness.

Is the inner chamber of my ice cream maker presently in the freezer chillin' so I can make a batch of sorbet tonight? Yes.

And finally, I thought I'd take a second to mention plastic baggie ice cream, as that's what started this whole home-made-ice-cream-thing for me. You see, a friend came across an article detailing the process, seems you put some rock salt and ice in a baggie, fill another baggie with your ice cream ingredients, put the ingredient-filled baggie in the ice baggie, give it a good shake and you're off! I'm sure it's not that simple, but it can't be too difficult as it's a popular activity in grade school classrooms. Anyway, I have yet to try it, but for those of you who for some reason haven't picked-up an ice cream maker this summer perhaps you too can live the (ice cream) dream!

Endurance photograph by Frank Hurley.