Some people remember sitting on top
of the old ice cream freezer, their
weight holding it in place as
someone else cranks the handle. For
others, it’s the unmistakable whir
of an electric freezer on a humid
back porch — or the tantalizing
sight of freezers lined up one after
another at the annual ice cream
social.
Even
today — with more and more brands
at the grocery store — the lure of
homemade ice cream remains strong.
“Part
of it, I think, is that it is
different. It has a different
consistency. It’s just very good
and sort of special in that way,”
said
Steve
Gardner
of
Waco
.
“For some of us, there is a lot of
nostalgia tied up with it.”
Plus,
homemade ice cream doesn't have a
predictable taste like one might
expect in store-brought brands.
“I
can give you a recipe, but any two
batches I make will not be exactly
the same,”
Gardner
said. “Like anything else that is
handmade, homemade, it doesn’t
have the mass-produced quality to
it.”
On
the farm in McGregor where Nancy
Mitchell was reared, all the makings
were readily available.
"We
had our own milk and cream and all
that stuff. We had chickens and
eggs," she said.
And
each summer, her mother would make
ice cream for her father. "My
daddy loved homemade ice
cream," Mitchell said. Once
when his leg was hurt, "I would
make it about every three days and
put some in the freezer" so he
always had some, she said.
Even
today, she follows the recipe for
vanilla ice cream that her mother
and grandmother used.
When
Gardner
was
growing up, he would visit his
mother’s family in
Arkansas
during peach season. Relatives would
come in to work the harvest, and
they'd eat something made with
peaches every day. “Ice cream
would have been my favorite,” he
said.
They
made it on the back porch, just
outside the kitchen. “Back then,
it was something that involved just
about everybody,” he said. The
women might mix the ingredients in
the kitchen, kids then taking over.
“Everybody
would want turns cranking the ice
cream freezer,” he said. “As the
ice cream became frozen and it was
harder to crank, it became this sort
of manly thing to do, too.” Someone
would sit on the towels and
newspapers on top of the freezer,
with someone else arm-wrestling it
until it was done.
Gardner
still makes homemade ice cream
today, albeit with an electric
freezer and primarily for special
occasions — one of which is
Lake
Shore
Baptist
Church
’s
annual ice cream social.
“It’s
probably the oldest tradition we
have here,” said
Catherine
Davenport
,
who has hosted the event for at
least a quarter of a century. The
first part of each June, church
members gather at the
Davenports
with their freezers, the kids
playing, adults talking, most
everyone tasting.
“It
gets harder and harder to have them
because not everybody has freezers
anymore,”
Davenport
said, remembering the days when
young couples made ice cream
freezers a stock part of even a
small kitchen collection.
When
the McCully family competed in last
year’s ice cream contest at
First
United
Methodist
Church
in
Lorena, they did it the “good
way” — with the hand-cranked
machine like the ones Nancy McCully
knew when she was growing up. It is
a summer tradition that doesn’t
happen so often anymore.
“We
don’t do it like we used to,”
she said. “It’s easier to run
down and pick up Blue Bell.”
Davenport
,
with her electric freezer,
understands that sentiment.
“If
you had to churn it, I wouldn’t
want to make it so often,” she
said.
For
the contest, the McCullys drew on a
recipe
Nancy
’s
older sister came up with about
three decades ago and added Oreos.
Her kids and a friend began
hand-cranking the machine.
“They
tired out, so my husband finished
it,” Nancy McCully said. The prize
was a definite nod to the 21st
century — gift certificates to
Marble Slab Creamery.
For
Gardner
,
though, part of the attraction of
homemade ice cream is that you
can’t just run down to the store
and buy some. It is reserved for
special occasions, like the socials
at Lake Shore Baptist. "It’s
sort of the whole scene of people
getting together,” he said.
“It’s just a special night of
the year.”
Recipes
are plentiful online, and just about
everyone you ask has some kind of
ice cream recipe. While Penny
Edens'
peach ice cream is one surefire hit
of the social,
Gardner
has
had success with a Jamoca recipe
he’s used the last several times.
“It
seems to disappear quickly at these
sorts of occasions,” he said.
Jamoca
Ice Cream
From
Steve
Gardner
1/4
cup coffee concentrate
4
eggs
1
cup sugar
2
tablespoons vanilla
1/3
cup chocolate flavored syrup
(according
to taste)
1/2
pint whipping cream
2
cans sweetened condensed milk
Whole
milk (approximately 11/2 quarts)
About
15 minutes before other steps,
prepare coffee concentrate. The
simplest method is to fully dissolve
3 or 4 tablespoons (according to
taste) of instant coffee in 1/4 cup
boiling water and chill in
refrigerator. In a large bowl,
thoroughly mix eggs, sugar and
vanilla, and the chocolate syrup,
whipping cream and chilled coffee
concentrate, and blend again. In the
freezer can, combine this mixture
with the sweetened condensed milk
and add whole milk to the fill line
on the can. Freeze according to
equipment instructions. Yield is 4
quarts, so scale recipe to your
freezer size.
Penny
Edens' Peach Ice Cream
8
eggs
2
cups of sugar
1
can evaporated milk 1 tablespoon
vanilla
4
or 5 cups peaches, crushed in
the
blender
Whipping
cream or milk
Beat
the eggs well. Add sugar and beat
the mixture. Add evaporated milk and
vanilla, beating the mixture again.
Add peaches. Beat the mixture well.
Fill the freezer with whipping cream
or milk.
Nancy
Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream
4
fresh eggs
11/2
cups sugar
1
teaspoon vanilla
14
oz. can Eagle Brand condensed milk
1
quart Half and Half
In
a large mixing bowl, beat eggs,
sugar and vanilla until
well-blended. Add condensed milk and
Half and Half, mixing together
slowly. Pour mixture in the freezer,
filling the rest of the freezer with
whole milk or additional Half and
Half to the fill line. Freeze with
plenty of rock salt.
McCully’s
Homemade Ice Cream
4
eggs
2
cups sugar
1
tablespoon vanilla
1
teaspoon salt
1
can condensed milk
1
small container whipping cream
Oreos,
slightly crumbled
Milk
Beat
eggs and sugar until smooth and
creamy. Add vanilla and salt,
continuing to beat. Add condensed
milk and beat the mixture together.
In a separate bowl, whip the
whipping cream with an electric
mixer and fold it into the mixture.
Pour the mixture into the canister.
Add about half a package of Oreos
into the canister. Add milk to the
line on the canister.
Reproduced
with permission of
Waco
Today, a product of
the Waco Tribune-Herald, Copyright 2002
