Old Fashioned Homemade Ice Cream

We like to make homemade ice cream every  once in a while. We've used an electric ice cream mixer, which works quite well, but it never really seems like an authentic process. I remember making ice cream with my Dad, as a kid, cranking the handle while he kept adding salt and ice to the bucket.  I've spent a couple of years perusing amazon and other internet sites, trying to find the best hand crank ice cream maker, without spending an arm and a leg. One thing became clear. They don't make them like they used to. I read many, many unhappy customer reviews of  today's hand crank mixers - mainly having to do with gears falling apart in the crank mechanism. 

So, in the end, I finally decided to go with a vintage 1950's Sears Coldspot ice cream maker I found on etsy.  It shows its age, but it's heavy and sturdy. The ice cream canister and dasher are spotless.

The ingredients for our vanilla ice cream were pretty basic, but very rich.

It doesn't look like much in the canister, but remember, it expands as it freezes. We add the salt and ice to the bucket and insert the dasher.

Then we begin cranking...

and cranking...

and cranking.

After about 30 minutes we had ice cream.

We scooped it into a container and put it in the freezer to harden up a littler more.

After dinner, we had a treat.

Store bought ice cream cannot compare.

Educational, fun, AND delicious.