We all scream for ICE CREAM

Or at least I do. My ice-cream maker is the second-most-used small appliance in the kitchen, after the pancake griddle (which is a whole other story). I make ice cream using 1% milk and sweeten it with Splenda, though stevia or sugar would, of course, work just fine. Thus, my ice cream is nutritionally the same as drinking frozen milk.

Homemade ice cream requires 5 - 15 minutes of prep, 18 minutes of hands-off "cook" time, and 5 minutes of cleanup, each time. For some people that is prohibitive, which is understandable, but I can usually find 10 minutes to spare for ice cream when I'm in the mood. (That's basically every day.)

Sugar-free, low-fat ice cream will freeze as hard as a rock if you don't eat it right away. Commercially made low-fat and sugar-free ice creams have a ton of stuff added to keep them soft, including air, which I find unsatisfying, not to mention kinda gross.

Making your own ice cream requires something thicker than plain milk, or it will become a fluffy slush instead of a nice creamy soft-serve. I have four ways of doing this:

Easiest: Jell-o Pudding

Next Easiest: Ricotta Cheese

Then: Pureed Fruit

And finally: Stirred Custard

For jell-o ice cream, just mix some instant jell-o and then pour it into the ice cream maker before it sets. This will produce a firm but not-very-frozen ice cream in a very short time, say 13 minutes. Ariel really likes the texture of this, but I don't like the flavors much. I do like a flavor I call "fudgicle" where I make chocolate jell-o but add extra cocoa powder to make it more chocolatey.

Ricotta cheese ice cream is the highest in fat and calories, so I only serve this when I'm expecting us to be hungry. You just mix equal parts premium quality ricotta and milk, and then add vanilla and sweetener to taste. The ricotta has to be really good, like Biazza brand. Don't settle, or your ice cream will be grainy and unpleasant. It's almost as easy as jell-o and produces a more icy ice cream.

Pureed fruit ice cream is tricky, because the fruit flavor is surprisingly difficult to predict once frozen. Freezing changes how our taste buds taste. The easiest recipe is to put sliced fresh strawberries in a blender, add milk to about 2/3 of the way to the top of the strawberries, and blend until smooth. Then strain out the seeds. You can also do this with peaches, cherries, cooked rhubarb, and blackberries. Pumpkin ice cream's good, too.

Stirred custard is the most traditional ice cream. "Real" ice cream was made this way, and in some places it still is. Stirred custard, also called creme anglais or pouring custard, is made by cooking eggs and milk together until it thickens, but not until you get scrambled eggs. The rest of this post is about custard, FYI.

Eggs set when heated. We all know that. The egg proteins tighten up and become rigid, but not all at once. There is a time when the proteins are beginning to tighten, but haven't yet gotten so tight that they become solid strings. That's when you have custard, like pumpkin pie. Stirred custard is a tiny bit earlier than that, where the proteins are still flexible and liquid.

You can imagine that the timing of this is pretty sensitive. You can find recipes for creme anglais everywhere, but mine is one of these two:

2 cups milk
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 beaten eggs

OR:

2 cups milk
3 beaten eggs

I normally only do the three-egg thing when making eggnog- or vanilla-flavored ice cream, since other flavors don't benefit fro the extra egginess.

To make the cornstarch one, mix the cornstarch with any other powders you will use (the sweetener, plus the cocoa if you're making chocolate flavor). Then mix the milk in, starting with just enough to moisten it. That's how you avoid lumps, and the method works with other sauces, too. Then cook, stirring constantly, over medium-high heat until it boils.

Then, slowly pour the hot milk mixture into the eggs, whisking quickly. Pouring it in slowly is called "tempering" and it prevents the eggs from cooking unevenly and becoming stringy. Once you've poured it all in, return it to the stove, over medium-low heat. Cook, whisking constantly.

The right time to stop cooking is difficult to see until you've gotten a feel for it. Basically, the custard will thicken a little and acquire a slightly wiggly texture, sort of like gelatine in a very subtle way. Remove it from the heat immediately. Placing it into a pan of ice water is a good idea, and it helps speed the cooling so you can eat your ice cream sooner.

Then, a few seconds later, it overcooks and begins to curdle. Oops! If it curdles, just put it into a blender and blend. It will be fine.

This obviously has to cool before it's ready. If you put hot liquid into your ice cream maker, it won't freeze (duh) so chill thoroughly first. You can chill it in your freezer if you stir it every 20 minutes to keep it from freezing around the edges into chunks.

There you have it! Here, have some recipes:

Strawberry
2 cups slices strawberries
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup Splenda
1 tbsp lemon juice (optional)
1/4 tsp vanilla

Puree in a blender. Ta-da!

Ricotta
1 cup milk
1 cup ricotta
1/2 cup Splenda
1 tsp vanilla

Whisk together. Yay!

Fudgicle
2 cups milk
1 packet chocolate jell-o
1/4 cup cocoa powder (plain, not the sweetened kind)
1/3 cup Splenda

Whisk the cocoa, Splenda, and jell-o powder together. Then whisk in the milk. Pour it into the ice cream maker before it sets!

Eggnog
1 3/4 cups milk
1 small can evaporated milk
3 eggs
2/3 cup Splenda
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 shot spiced rum (optional)
1 tbsp butter

Whisk dry ingredients together, then add milk. Cook until it begins to boil, then slowly whisk into the eggs. Return to heat and cook until slightly thickened, then remove from heat to a bowl of ice. Whisk in the butter and the rum. This one is better if it has a longer time to chill. You can make a double (or triple...) batch for drinking normally.