#18 Recipe: Gelato AND #76 Mini Adventures: Homemade Ice Cream

So we went to Target last night and found an amazing deal: an ice cream maker for only $20! What a steal! Now, I love ice cream of course, but I ADORE gelato. I go nuts for the stuff! So, to celebrate our fantastic find, we found this amazing recipe for gelato.

Honestly, it isn't the easiest stuff to make - mostly because it takes so dang long. I just wanted to get that goodness in me! But you have to be patient, and it is quite rewarding when you're done.

Ingredients:
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar, divided
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
(And then whatever other flavoring you want. We just added macadamia nuts and caramel. That's Anth's favorite!)

To make it, you combine the milk, cream, and 1/2 cup sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook it until the sugar dissolves completely.

In a separate bowl, whip the egg yolks and remaining sugar together until they are thick and pale yellow. I did this with my kitchenaid and it worked quite well - I could tend to the milk on the stove while it was mixing up (wow, I'm thankful for than invention!). Then pour a little bit (1/2 cup or so) of the milk mixture into the eggs and stir, then add it all back into the saucepan. Stir constantly until it starts to get thick (the recipe says thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon - whatever that means!) but it does start to get thick after 7 or 8 minutes. Then add vanilla.

Now this is the important part - you have to wait until the mixture is completely chilled before you put it in the ice cream maker or else it won't work. We discovered this quickly. We actually tried putting it in when it had only been in the freezer an hour or so (and hot liquid does not cool very quickly in the freezer, even after an hour it was still lukewarm) and it did nothing. We left it in the fridge overnight, and tried it again today and it thickened into ice cream almost instantly.

We added the macadamia nuts just before taking it out of the ice cream maker and then added the caramel after serving.

Sooooooo yummy! I really want to try different combinations! Plus, it isn't really all that bad for you - only 3/4 cup sugar total, and mostly milk instead of cream. I don't know the exact calorie count, but it seems very healthy (and don't anyone try to correct me!).

In addition to being a new family recipe, this was one of our mini-adventures that we decided to do together, and it ended up being a lot of fun. Sugar always makes for a good bonding experience!