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Hand-cranked Vanilla Ice Cream

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Prep: 10 mins Cook: 25 mins + 30-120 minutes Yields: 1 gallon

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 6 cups half and half
  • 4 cups whole milk
  • 3 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • ½ table salt

Equipment

  • Hand-cranked ice cream maker (ice bucket, freezer can, dasher, lid, crank)
  • Crushed ice
  • Coarse or rock salt

Instructions

  • Prechill the freezer can, dasher, and lid.
  • Beat eggs until light.
  • Add sugar gradually to eggs while beating, until thick.
  • Add half and half, milk, vanilla, and salt and mix well.
  • Place the dasher in the freezer can.
  • Pour the ice cream mixture into pre-chilled freezer can, around the dasher.
  • Tighten the lid on the freezer can.
  • Place the freezer can into the ice bucket.
  • Carefully pack ice and rock salt around the freezer can. Do not load as high as the lip of the can.
  • Turn the crank slowly to stir the mixture the ice melts and a brine forms.
  • Add more ice and salt to maintain the ice level up to the drain hole.
  • Turn the crank for 20-25 minutes until it is hard to turn the crank.
  • Remove the lid carefully to keep brine out of the ice cream.
  • Remove the dasher to a tray and offer the dasher and spoons to waiting children.
  • Eat right away, or ripen the ice cream for a firmer dessert:
  • Replace the lid tightly on the freezer can.
  • Plug the hole in the lid.
  • Pack more ice and salt (4:1 ratio) around the freezer can.
  • Cover with a blanket and chill for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours.

Chef's Notes

Source

Jim Willis recorded this recipe, but it may have comedown from older sources. We had a hand-cranked ice cream maker, which had an outer fiberglass bucket for holding the salted iced water, with an inner aluminum cyclindrical vessel (freezer can) for the ice cream mixture. The dasher (paddle) went into this vessel and a lid. When you turned the crank, the dasher spun and churned the ice cream as the mixture froze from the salted ice bath.

This was popular at our Shorewood home and the grandparents places in Iowa and it seemed like we only made it on the hottest days of summer in July and August.

The recipe was somehow omitted from the printed version of Go Cook!