Ice cream ~ Rich and creamy without using an Ice cream maker !

Happy Ice cream day everyone! Yes, its National Ice cream day. I too didn't know that untill yesterday. Apparently, it is celebrated on the 3rd Sunday of July. I had this post ready yesterday, but I delayed it for one more day to make it special :).

Ice cream - one such dessert that knows no age limit. I am not a very big fan of it but when I crave for it, the thought just does not leave me in peace untill I have it. I have tried to make these at home many a times, but it just does not get creamy and rich as the store bought ones. It remains as a huge ice cube that is flavoured - difficult to scoop out and nowhere close to what you get from the market. The thought of buying an ice cream maker that I may end up using for few months of summer, has always seemed to be unreasonable. Sheela from Korporate2Kitchen had shared her recipe sometime back and I was curious to try it. With the summer getting to its peak, we had all the more reason to give it a try. I tweaked the recipe slightly while I gave it a try to cut down few calories. Still it turned out to be perfect - just like the store bought ones and the highlight being that, no ice cream maker was required for it.

After dinner, when I offered ice cream to my husband, he was hesitant thinking of my earlier ice cream experiments. But when he ate some, he was all in to go for another round of it :). These days post dinner, he serves ice cream. He just can't wait for me to be done with the dishes to serve him with it :). So, here it is.

Ingredients

1. 1 cup of milk
2. 1 large egg
3. 2-3 tbsp of sugar
4. 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
5. 1 cup of cold whipping cream
6. 6 oz / 175 gm of sweetened condensed milk (I used a little less than half of the 14 oz can)

Method

• In a saucepan, take the milk and sugar. Beat the egg and pour into it. Place it on the stove, on medium heat and cook it well. Keep stirring it continuously. After some time, it would start to thicken like a custard. Remove it from heat and let it cool. Strain it, to make it free of lumps, if any. Place it in the fridge to chill.
• In a mixing bowl, take the cold whipping cream and vanilla extract. Beat it to soft peaks. Add the condensed milk and beat it again just untill they blend well.
• Add the chilled custard to it and beat it again untill everything gets combined uniformly.
• Now pour it into an airtight container and place it in the freezer. 
• After 2 hours, take it out and using a hand mixer beat the mixture well. Keep it back in the freezer. Continue this process for 2 more times. 
• Freeze it for 6-7 hours or untill it sets. Its going to turn out to be creamy and rich just like the store bought ice cream. 

Tips

1. Keep stirring continuously while making the custard else you may end up having cooked eggs in the custard.  
2. Enjoy it with melted chocolate/ raisins/ cashews or any other topping of your choice.  
3. While you beat the ice cream mixture the last time, you could fold in ingredients of your choice like - walnuts/ almonds/ pecan/ diced berries etc.