Homemade ice cream is one of the healthiest and affordable summer desserts. These treats offer the much-needed bliss to crown your summer afternoons. The treats will be even sweeter when prepared at home. Here are some ideas on how to make ice cream in a bag in your kitchen.
Chemistry Behind Ice Cream Desserts
Ice cream making can be a fun-packed activity, especially when done with the family. The participation of your kids makes the work easier and also gives them an opportunity to lean. Having a kid’s friendly ice cream maker is an added advantage. Click here for some of the best ice cream makers for kids.
Ice cream bags are arguably the best ice cream makers for kids. They come in handy in facilitating the science behind ice cream making.
The ice cream science revolves around temperature adjustments. The quality o ice cream produced will not only be determined by the ingredients but also the skills to manipulate the temperature. This is a very interesting process especially when you know what is happening at every stage.
The science behind ice cream treats starts with refrigerated ingredients. These need to be cooled to room temperature for the process to begin. Eventually, you will then need to refrigerate but this time around they will not be ingredients but ready to eat ice cream.
What Do You Need To Make Ice Cream In A Bag?
Basically, using a bag to make ice cream requires sugar, milk, and flavor. Well, you will also need to have a mechanism of manipulating the temperature. Most people use rock salt and ice. The science used in melting ice on frozen roads comes to play when making ice cream with bags. The salt plays the magic by lowering the water’s freezing point. It will thus melt even after hitting the normal freezing point.
Adding salt to water changes its freezing point. This process is known as freezing point depression. This process isn’t unique to water as it also occurs in other solutions.
Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream Ingredients
- Sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Measuring spoon
- Heavy whipping cream or half and half
- Two sealable bags (pint/sandwich size)
- Two sealable bags (gallon size)
- Ice cubes (8 cups)
- Small towel
- Clock/timer
How To Make Your Ice Cream
Place one a tablespoon of sugar in each of the small bags. Add half a cup of half and a half or whipping cream. Add a quarter teaspoon of the vanilla extract. Seal the bags carefully. you may place the bags in a refrigerator as you set up the other bags.
Place 4 cups of ice cubes in one of the larger bags. Add half a cup of salt. By now I’m sure you know the purpose of adding the salt.
Take the small bag, with ingredients and place it inside the large bag with salt and ice cubes. Ensure that the small bag is tightly sealed. Seal the large bag.
Wrap the bag with a towel. Start shaking the bag. You will now be playing the role of an ice cream machine. Shake it for around five minutes. Ensure that you are maintaining a keen eye at the bags as you continue shaking.
Take the second bag, the gallon size bag, and add four cups of ice cubes. Do not add salt this time around.
Take the other small bag and place it inside the large bag. Once again, ensure that the bags are tightly sealed.
Wrap the bags with a towel and start shaking. Feel the bags as you shake and check the contents of the small bag after five minutes.
Compare the results in the bag with salt with that without salt.
By now, you should have made some ice cream already! If not, here’s how to go about it.
If any of the bags did not produce smooth ice cream, return it inside the bag that had salt and ice cubes. Shake it for another five minutes. This should be enough to deliver the desired smooth and tasty ice cream treat.
Why The Different Results?
The two approaches adopted above in making ice cream in a bag will help you understand the importance of manipulating temperature in the ice cream making process. The ice cubes in the bag with salt melted faster than that without. This cooled the ingredients fast enough to make them harden and turn into ice cream.
The secret behind making ice cream in bags is inventing a way to harden the ice cream ingredients in the shortest time possible. The use of salt has proved to be very effective and the results have been admirable. Well, different types of salt may deliver different results.
How To Avoid Ending Up With Salty Ice Cream
In addition to learning how to make ice cream in a bag, its important that you learn how to keep your ice cream sweet. The use of salt hastens the hardening but may be very messy when handled inappropriately.
Nobody wants to have salty ice cream and the sure way of ensuring that the salt doesn’t get into contact with the ice cream is ensuring that the seals are reliable. Ziploc bags withstand pressure even with vigorous shaking.
The use of high-quality bags lowers the risk of tears. If you aren’t sure about the quality of the bags, use double bags. The chances of tearing two bags while shaking are quite low.
Well, the seal may withstand the pressure but you still end up with salty ice cream. This happens if you aren’t careful when opening the bags. When you are sure that the ice is ready, rinse the small bag before you can open it. Rinsing with cold water gives the guarantee that no salt will leak into the bag.
Tasty Ice Cream Tips
Vanilla ice cream is too common and a little adventure wouldn’t hurt. Well, a cleaver way of tweaking your recipe is adding cookie crumbs, chocolate bits, or candy bits. These should only be added after you have frozen the ice cream. Adding them earlier can elongate the duration taken to freeze the ice cream.
Being diabetic shouldn’t deny you the pleasure of enjoying some creamy desserts. There are incredible tricks on how to make ice cream in a bag a healthy way. One such tricks are substituting sugar with Equal, sweet and low, or Splenda.
Conclusion
Making ice cream at home gives you the freedom to control what goes into your ice cream. It, therefore, guarantees you of high quality and healthy treats. We hope that these ideas will help you make tasty and healthy treats while having some fun in the kitchen.
