Homemade vanilla ice cream

A few days into my stay in Calgary, I found an ice-cream maker! And I bought it! Chuan and I’d been looking for one but never was there one to be found. So, I thought that maybe they weren’t to be had in Malaysia. I still don’t know if you can find them here, but I already have one, so I don’t care.

So, I paid for it, got William to carry it home – it was heavy – and in a couple of days, was ready to ice-cream :)

I found a recipe online, and with William’s help to set up the machine, was ready to roll, when he said that I couldn’t do it! WHY? Apparently, he’d just read the instructions – in French, of course – and it says that you’ve got to put the base in the freezer for at least eight hours, or overnight, before it is good to go.

Dang! And I was so ready to do it, even!

So, into the freezer it went. The wait was on.

The next day, I made the custard, following the recipe I’d found – that guaranteed success.

I found the recipe at ice-cream-recipes.com (duh! hahahaha!). And these are the ingredients you’d need for the custard base:

 4 egg yolks
 250 ml milk
 250 ml cream
 100 g castor sugar
 vanilla (they call for a vanilla pod, but I couldn’t be bothered with that lah)

And here’s how you do it:

1. Heat the milk until it almost comes to the boil. This means that you see tiny bubbles along the edge. If you wait a second longer, it’ll froth up and spill over. So, don’t. Take it off the flame, and leave it to cool for about twenty minutes.

2. Beat the eggs and sugar together till thick and creamy.

3. Add the hot milk to the eggs. I didn’t do this all at once: I poured a little at a time into the egg-mix, until both were of the same temperature. I didn’t want scrambled eggs, did I?

4. The whole lot now goes back in the saucepan, and is heated. Stir all the time, and every so often, drag your finger down the back of your spoon to see if you can get the mixture to make a clean and clear path. If this happens, without leaching and blurring, your custard is cooked. (At no time must it boil – or it’ll curdle. So, they say lah.)

5. Leave the mixture to cool completely.

6. When cool, stir in the cream.

7. Then, the whole lot is chucked into the spanking new ice-cream maker. It takes about twenty minutes to turn into a totally yummy, soft ice-cream.

8. Pop the lot into a freezer-proof container, and let it get colder in the freezer for at least a couple of hours - if you have a strong will, and can wait that long, lah.

So easy, yah?

Errrr, actually, no.

Apparently, my dearest Chuan told me (after I’d bought it; and not having asked him first about it lah), that I needed a step-down-transformer to use it in Malaysia.

You see, Canada uses 120 volt current. We use 240 volts. Geez, I hope I’ve got this right.

So, where the heck to buy that? Chuan found someplace online – I think it’s in One Utama somewhere.

But just a couple of days ago, Larnee found one in Calgary. A simple telephone call, and a ‘yes, please’, and now I have a step-down-transformer heading home to me in a week or so :)

Did I mention that the step-down-transformer cost me just slightly less than the ice-cream maker? Hehehe! But it was all kinda cheap in my book lah.

For the pleasure of eating homemade ice cream, without additives or air or other unknown junk; for a lesson on electricity and how-things-work; and for the sheer pleasure of finally succeeding in making my own ice cream – it was all worth it :)

If you’re ever in my neck of the woods, pop over to my place, and I’ll make you some ice cream. Vanilla, or chocolate, or blueberry – whatever you like. If you’ve got the basic custard recipe, you can do anything your heart desires. And it’ll all be good!

Next up: sorbet - ice cream without milk, that Chuan loves - maybe with lime, or watermelon, and touch of arak sereptiously added, for moi ;) and gelato! Yay!