Feature Articles
Cranking a "Safe" Freezer of Homemade Ice Cream
Karma Metzgar, C.F.C.S. Former Northwest Regional Nutrition Specialist, Nodaway County Extension Center, University Outreach and Extension
A freezer of homemade, hand-cranked ice cream is a real treat. Some people use an electric model. In the classroom we help children shake a bag of ice cream for a single serving of ice cream. Yummy-especially when it’s hot!
As a child, I remember the big gathering at our church was the ice cream social-and it was all homemade! There were the vanilla ice creams - some with a touch of lemon, some with a touch of almond, and some very vanilla. The chocolate ice creams all had their special characteristics too.
When we got ready to make homemade ice cream, we would always visit the neighbor’s dairy barn with two empty mayonnaise jars for cream so thick we would scoop it out of the jar just like mayonnaise! Mother would beat the eggs and sugar until frothy following her directions from the 1950 cookbook. Then we would put it into the freezer to hand crank.
What is wrong with this picture now? Raw eggs and raw milk! Just as the style of cars, our phone service, our hemlines, and the cost of postage changes, so does our attention to food safety. First, the recipe was from 1950. We’ve learned much about egg safety, and eating raw eggs is out of style. They are out of style whether in homemade ice cream, cookie dough, Caesar salad or other favorite dishes. The concern is over salmonella from raw eggs. There also are food safety issues with raw milk products which pasteurization controls.
There is an alternative to safe “raw egg” dishes besides the cooked versions, or in the case of ice cream, the cooked custard method. The alternative is to substitute the raw egg called for in your recipe with the whole refrigerated or frozen whole liquid pasteurized eggs found at the grocery store in the produce dairy/eggs section or in the frozen food section. The pasteurized egg product needs to be the whole egg and not just the whites or the texture of the ice cream will not be what you expect-rich and creamy.
Besides the egg issue, there often is a concern about making ice cream that is a lower fat version. The more fat in the milk or cream, the smoother the frozen mixture will be. Substituting 2% milk for half-and-half or whipping cream in the recipe will make ice cream that is lower in fat but still smooth. However, if you were to use 1% or skim milk, your ice cream would have lots of ice crystals in it and be low in volume.
I’ve also had questions about replacing some or all of the sugar with artificial sweeteners. Sugar does more for ice cream than make it sweet. It raises the freezing temperature of the mixture so you can freeze it with ice, water and salt (which happens to lower the freezing temperature). Sugar helps to make the mixture easy to dip when frozen. For example, you cannot dip ice because it does not contain sugar. Ingredients provide more than flavor, they also serve a function. Cooking really is a science! There is nothing wrong with making ice cream rich, creamy and smooth - using sugar, pasteurized milk with fat, and pasteurized raw eggs to safely make great-tasting ice cream Or, choose a safe recipe that contains cooked eggs or is eggless.
Yes, I know that we’ve all consumed raw eggs in
homemade ice cream in the past. But that picture is old
and we need to get with the current research-based
recommendations to be in style and be safe.
Last Updated 10/25/2007
 |
Site Administrator: |
|
|
|
