This month’s theme over on Bobbledy Books is ICE CREAM. Because it’s one of my favorite things in the world. I told Kato that we could make ice cream for his birthday, and he was very excited (not as excited as I was). I asked people on FB what their favorite flavors of ice cream were, and we got some interesting responses (see the Bobbledy post about it HERE), which I hoped would stir Kato’s imagination.

And guess what flavors he insisted on making…

Chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. *sigh*

And so we set to work on the simplest ice cream recipe ever – whipped cream and condensed milk. First, get out your heavy cream (2 cups of it, preferably dispensed by small and careful hands):

Next, pour your heavy cream into your standard-issue stand mixer. Or just a bowl with a hand mixer.

Turn that sucker to the highest setting and go meditate with your dog in the sun for a little while:

Take a chilled 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk and empty it into your mixing bowl:

I said EMPTY IT!!!! Yeah, nearly impossible. The stuff is the definition of “gelatinous goo”:

Fold it in together and then add your flavoring (only the best, Special Dark):

Wonder if Special Dark really is the best after all. This looks more like shoe leather than chocolate. Add some mini chocolate chips to try to bring it back around.

If mini chocolate chips don’t do the trick, try some mini marshmallows.

Taste test.

Give the “chocolate” a rest and chop up some strawberries:

Enlist some comrades-in-arms if you start feeling overwhelmed by said strawberries:

Mash up the strawberries so they’ll mix in better with the ice cream (though leave some big chunks for fun):

Forget to take a picture of the mixing-in-the-strawberries step. Try to do some more taste testing on the sly, and do your best to look innocent when caught.

Throw everything in the freezer for a day and then have at it.

Final outcome: it TASTED like ice cream (delicious) but the texture was pretty dense (it might have been because we beat it so much that all the fluff was gone by the time we got it in the freezer). I would say it’s a great binding base to try out interesting flavors with (fresh chunky berries or cookies) but for straight up chocolate and vanilla we probably should have just lightly mixed it and put it right in the freezer.

That said, it TASTED delicious. And was super easy and a fun project to do with the kids. Check out the video where I got the recipe from HERE and let us know how it goes. A free book to anyone who tries to recreate any one of the 10 extreme ice cream flavors listed HERE (foie gras?! Pizza? Bacon and olive?) and reports back!