Grandma's ice-cream recipe.....

 I thought I'd start this week off by sharing my favourite ice-cream recipe, seem those of you who are living in the northern hemisphere are heading into spring and we here in New Zealand are still trying to hang onto the 'summer that never was' :-) This is the ice-cream that my Mother made on a very regular basis when we were kids and as it is quite easy I used to make it for her sometimes after school while she was working. I call it "Grandma's ice-cream" because the recipe originally came from my Grandmother on my father's side. My Grandparents lived on a farm and sometimes after a visit there, we would come home with some fresh milk straight from the cow before the cream had been taken off. It was this milk that made the best ice-cream. So now when I make it I always substitute 1 cup of milk for 1 cup of cream. Now you may have noticed in the photos that there are pieces of biscuits/cookies in it... One of our favourite ice-cream flavours in our family is "Cookies and cream" so to this basic recipe we added one packet of  "Oreo cookies", crushed. We have also tried the traditional New Zealand flavour of Hokey Pokey which was pretty nice too :-)
Okay onto the recipe:

• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 8 heaped tablespoons full-cream milk powder
• 3 cups milk (substitute 1 cup for cream)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons gelatin dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot water
• 1-2 teaspoons natural vanilla essence

Mix sugar and milk powder together in large bowl. Dissolve gelatin in water in a cup standing in a pot of simmering water stirring until clear. Slowly add milk/cream to sugar and milk powder and whisk until sugar is dissolved. Add vanilla essence then the dissolved gelatin whisking all the time to ensure gelatin is completely dispersed and no lumps have formed. Pour into a lidded plastic or freezer proof container and freeze for one hour or until sides are just starting to freeze. Remove from freezer and pour into ice-cream maker and churn until thick and creamy. Now if you don't have an ice-cream maker you can use an electric mixer to beat until thick and creamy although you may have to repeat this process again to obtain the thick and creamy consistency.
Once the ice-cream is churned or beaten you may then add the crushed biscuits, crushed pieces of Hokey Pokey if desired. Semi-crushed berries such as raspberries or blueberries would also be a nice addition.

One of the benefits of making your own ice-cream I think is that you know what's in it therefore no hidden preservatives or additives. If you've been reading by blog for a wee while now you will know that just before Christmas I purchased a small ice-cream maker. I had resisted buying one for quite a few years as I had successfully made ice-cream without one using my Kenwood mixer but now that I have one I wonder why I waited so long. It was not that expensive and churns up deliciously creamy ice-cream without that not so nice 'icey consistency' that you can get making home-made ice-cream. So if you've hesitated on purchasing an ice-cream maker like I did, hesitate no more! They are worth it. Plus if you live in NZ and collect Flybuy points they have one available in their catalogue too.