Halloween, Homemade Ice Cream and Alchemy
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I ran across something interesting in the New York times today that seemed like with a little bit of work, could be replicated at home and would be a cool feature at say a Halloween party. Perhaps you could churn up some pumpkin and chocolate chip ice cream with a bit of alchemy flair. The idea comes from Lulu & Mooky’s a New York ice cream shop that whips up their homemade ice cream with little bit of added flair. Rather than using a traditional ice cream maker, they use a KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment and get this liquid nitrogen. So for Mr Tapper and Ram Chhetri, the store’s owners, rock salt and ice isn’t good enough. They instead go all Bill Nye the Science Guy on their favorite frosty treat. And it’s this novel application of science that, in my mind, would make this worth playing around with as a center piece for a Halloween party. Just imagine, the smoky cauldron, maybe you serve it in little carved out pumpkins or shrunken heads.
So going along on that theme, I thought it be kinda cool to find other ways to work homemade ice cream into your halloween. Some things are probably rather obvious like ice cream cakes and such. But with a melon baller or an ice cream scoop, also called a disher, a very well rounded single scoop of vanilla ice cream drizzled with a little raspberry sauce and topped with a blue, green, or brown, or any other color for that matter, M&M and a tiny drop of melted dark chocolate for the pupil makes for a really creepy and yummy disembodied eye.
Maybe step it up a notch and make a bloody vanilla ice cream eye and orange juice float. To do that, mix in equal proportions orange juice and pinapple juice drop in your ice cream eye and drizzle the raspberry sauces over the eye and around the rim of the glass so that the raspberry sauce runs down the inside of the glass.
Or if you know someone who is pregnant and your thinking about baby shower ideas that fit the theme of the season. Well personally, I can think of nothing scarier than some of the things that women crave during pregnancy…. now don’t get mad at me! My wife was quite sexy when she was pregnant and I have a beautiful daughter because of it. I’m just saying that some of the combinations my wife came up with could make for a good Halloween-themed baby shower. Nope, not pickles and ice cream but Natto and raw eggs and ice cream. And if you don’t know what Natto is, Google it–it’s the living dead of fermented soy products.
You could also let everyone make their own ice cream using plastic ziplock bags. All you need for that is ice, rock salt or other salt, 1/2 milk or cream, 1 tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla extract. Just like the old timey ice cream makers, the rock salt goes into the big outer Ziplock bag until half full. Toss in the salt as well and add the other stuff to the inner bag. Seal everything up real tight and start shaking the bajeezus out it. After about 5 minutes, you should have ice cream in the inner bag. Because you just eat it straight out of the bag there’s almost no cleanup.
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I want the kids to make icees. I know the ingredients but not the measurments. How much ice? How much juice? Mainly though, how much rock salt in the ice??? Thanks,
@mseymour, Thanks for visiting my site and leaving your comment. Making Icees and the like are a little bit difficult because they use a special machine that freezes a carbonated syrup base. There are home models available that claim to do the same thing but reviews don’t really reflect a high rate of customer satisfaction. I think the best alternative for home is to crush ice using your blender. Here in Japan, home shaved ice makers are very common and would also do the trick. If you decide to use your blender though, I’d pre-crush the ice because crushing ice is really hard on the blender’s motor.
To pre-crush the ice, lay a towel down on your counter and lay a plastic cutting board on top of the towel. Dump your ice in a zip-lock bag and place it on the cutting board and then lay another towel on top. The towels are to prevent damaging anything so use caution at first. Then give the ice some good whacks from a heavy frying pan. Again be careful not to damage your counter or fry pan.
As far as a recipe, it’s really hard to give you some hard measurements because liquids vary in how “thick” they can be and to be honest, I’ve never set out to duplicate an Icee. I have had good luck making my smoothies using 2 cups ice to a cup-cup and one quarter juice blended together.
Finally, about the rock salt–you won’t need any. Even in ice cream making, the rock salt isn’t an ingredient but is used in old-fashioned ice cream makers (before electricity) to melt the ice to lower the temperature of the cream mix inside a separate container so that the mix can freeze. You may find however that adding a wee pinch of regular table salt to your blender with the juice and ice will make the finally drink tastier.
Again Thanks