The sun is bright and inviting, the ground is dry, and it finally feels like Springtime: today is the perfect day to whip out your ice cream machine to enjoy a nice, cool, creamy dish full of your very own homemade confection. This is exactly why today is also the perfect day to tell you about an ice cream cheat I tried (after my foray into Kahlua ice cream was a bust) - the fact that my last entry was as long as an encyclopedia and this will be short and sweet is just an added bonus.
Although I'm itching to make more of my own ice cream from absolute scratch (including a banana liqueur flavor, though the trickiness of alcohol is frightening me off), I found this mix from Williams-Sonoma to be enjoyable, to put it simply. I don't know how much easier it is than any other eggless recipe you can find out there (since that does, admittedly, add another step to the process), but it is comforting to know that your very own ice cream is just a can and a few extra ingredients away. The mix was a gift, so I decided to give it a shot amidst my snotty grumblings about how I'm just too good for these kitchen cheats, and I have to say, I'm glad I did. If nothing else, it helps you get a better grasp on your ice cream maker without the added intimidation of a new recipe to boot.
The vanilla ice cream that this mix produced was sweet, with a very nice consistency after an overnight stay in the freezer. It paired particularly beautifully with fruit. My only complaint (aside from the stigma attached to doing anything culinary that involves a mix) is that it doesn't use a full thing of half-and-half or heavy cream, and I'm just not the kind of person who uses that kind of stuff on a daily basis. If we're going with the whole glass-half-full thing, though, it gives you a perfect excuse to, oh I don't know - whip up a second batch or make a chocolate ganache or hot fudge sauce to pour on top. You get the picture - this leftover cream creates endless opportunities for even more dessert than you planned to make in the first place.
So, if you're new to ice cream making and you want to get your feet wet, or if you were always curious about how that mix would turn out but just never could convince yourself to buy it (another grievance I have, come to think of it - it's much cheaper to go the fully-from-scratch route), I'm here to tell you that it at the very least produces a nice ice cream. I won't go running around raving about it, but it was good, and the texture was certainly infinitely better than my first attempt.
Oh, and one more plus - when you're finished making the ice cream you're left with a pretty cute can that you can use around the house, provided you don't mind advertising for Williams-Sonoma a little bit.
Happy Beautiful Weather, everyone!
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