Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Ice Cream Heaven


Boy, was this a great weekend. We arrived home from our vacation to find a mysteriously huge box on the front porch. Turned out to be an old fashioned ice cream maker from my uncle Bill and cousin Jesse. As you know (if you came to our wedding), I come from a family of major homemade ice cream fans.

We made my grandma's recipe this weekend and it was fantastic. We picked vanilla since it's pretty easy but if you ever go to one of my mom and dad's parties, you're likely to find some rather exotic flavors: Banana ice cream, raspberry ice and my mom's most memorable : Cayenne pepper (not my favorite).
Here are a couple of our ice cream experts at work (at our wedding):

Bill Frey, master ice cream maker
My 96 year-old grandpa
Family friend Carl Chew
My godfather Ron
And that's me. I confess: I probably only gave two cranks on the handle during our wedding (the photo was more for show) but the ice cream (and sherbets) were excellent

Back to this weekend.

We had a lot of leftovers so I made my first-ever ice cream cake. It was totally easy and really tasty.


Needed: Lots of ice cream and two 9-inch round cakes
Start with a cake layer on the bottom, add an ice cream layer, stick the second cake layer on top of that, and finish it off with one last ice cream layer
Freeze.
I cheated and used a store-bought frosting, mostly because I needed a really stiff frosting. Add chocolate shavings on top.
Eat.Thanks Bill!