Homemade Ice Cream without a Freezer

UPDATE: Over the years I’ve gotten a bunch of comments on this video, so let me address the most commonly pointed out mistakes/questions asked:

• Yes, you do in fact have to put this in the freezer after you make it. There’s really no such thing as an ice cream that will magically stay cold on its own. What I mean by “without a freezer” was without a mechanical ice cream maker/freezer.
• The picture in the video is the real finished result. A few have complained that there’s no payoff. But that picture is it! I’m sorry I didn’t think to take video of scooping it after it was set in the freezer.
• I realize I misspoke when I talked about salt’s affect on the freezing temperature of water. Adding salt to ice lowers the freezing point, and makes the ice colder. Salty water has a lower freezing point than pure water. The water on the surface of salty ice is colder, so the ice feels colder than pure water ice. You can read all about it here.
• Yes, a bigger bowl would have prevented the splash. But I didn’t have a bigger outer bowl. Something with curved sides would have helped too. But hopefully a few of you got something out of the splash guard tip.
• Sorry to those of you bothered by the ice that escaped the bowl. It was just ice though – easy to clean up.
• The spots on my arms are just freckles 😉 I’ve gotten a few “gross!” comments but…whatever. It’s just pigment, and they’re just my arms.
• Yes, some of you are right. I probably don’t need any more ice cream. But it’s not about need, and this isn’t about me; it’s about the recipe. Enjoy or toodle on by 🙂
• Thank you all for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it.

Every 4th of July, my dad would haul out the old ice cream maker.  A big wooden bucket, a motor and a cylinder with a giant paddle.  He would swear at and fight with it to keep the paddle moving, he would add ice and salt.  A lot of sweat went into that ice cream.  Well, luckily not literally.  We couldn’t wait for it to really cure, so we messily devoured bowls of ice cream soup.

I don’t have a back yard here in the city, nor do I have room in my urban kitchen for (another) gadget that will sit idly on the shelf about 360 days of the year.  So I went in search of a way to make ice cream without the machine.

There are lots of methods that seem to vary in time, effort and mess.  I settled on one this solution from the kitchn was a little more equipment-intensive than a plastic bag or a coffee can, but seemed to do the same trick with things I already have in my kitchen.

I recorded my progress – hopefully this video will help you if you want to try it.  Just beware, it’s not a mess-free solution by any means.  But the creamy, delicious ice cream I remember from hot summer days, in a much smaller quantity, is the same result.  I didn’t break a sweat, and I didn’t even have to swear.

Here’s the vanilla ice cream recipe I used.  I just changed the servings to 4 and substituted vanilla bean paste for the vanilla extract.