We All Yell for Homemade Ice Cream

Oh yes.

Where most guys get the craving to build a man cave or tune up some kind of automobile engine or climb a mountain backward or jump off a bridge while on fire and tied to a large rubber band, I'm always seeking my next culinary accomplishment.

A couple of months after splurging on my Zoku ice pop maker, I found myself itching to make homemade ice cream; it's not quite my "climbing Mount Everest" ambition, it's probably up there with Mount McKinley.

All I needed...


...was an ice cream maker. An ice cream maker isn't one of those items that most people register for before their wedding, and unlike my Zoku, which delivers a finished product in about 10 minutes — with directions as simple as "Pour into machine whatever juice you happen to have in the fridge. Place stick into juice. Wait." — the typical ice cream maker is not going to turn you into either Ben or Jerry very quickly.

Fortunately, my parents still had the Krups ice cream maker I'd bought them some 10 years ago, which was used only once and preserved in its original box. If I ever build a time machine, I'll have to thank my younger self for having the foresight to buy this gift back when I actually had the money to blow on such a purchase. Now if I can only get him to buy some Google stock.

My new summer best friend.

As far as the basic ice cream recipe is constructed, first you have to prepare the mixture, which is usually a combo of some liquid dairy products (and unless half-and-half and heavy cream are on your weekly grocery list, they're probably not chilling out on the shelf with your containers of milk), sugar, and flavoring. Oftentimes, especially if you're working with egg yolks in order to make more of a frozen custard, you have to cook the mixture. Then the mixture has to cool down for at least a few hours, if not overnight.

Once the mixture is cold enough, you pour it into your chilled ice cream maker bowl. What? You didn't put your bowl into the freezer a couple of days ago to ensure that whatever gel encased within the bowl is rock-salt solid? Or are you a Rockefeller or a Rock-a-Fella and own that professional-level machine that can get you from liquid to Baskin-Robbins heaven in like a half hour? Even I'm not that extreme. Or rich.

Anyway, the ice cream maker will churn for about a half hour, and you'll get soft-serve consistency. If you prefer the harder stuff, the result goes back into the freezer (after you transfer it to a storage container) for several more hours.

In other words, fresh ice cream isn't the kind of treat you can whip up when you're throwing a backyard barbecue and say to the wife, "Hey, in what part of the attic is the ice cream maker? I'll bet our guests would love some right now!"

ALL GOOD ICE CREAMS WILL COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT

I was in a hurry to try out the machine once the bowl was frozen long enough, so I whipped up a simple recipe off the Internet. It was just a mixture of cream, half-and-half, sugar, and vanilla. No cooking or additional chilling needed.

The result was a sweet slurry that resembled a somewhat melted milkshake, and after letting it freeze overnight, it became an adequate ice cream. But I didn't want adequate. So I consulted Alton Brown.

SERIOUSLY AWESOME
I consulted Brown's recipe for "serious" vanilla ice cream and was immediately turned off by the "total" cooking time of 11 hours. But I wanted to see what really good homemade ice cream tasted like.

The recipe calls for vanilla beans. That is, seeds from a vanilla bean. The yield from my bean doesn't look like much, but the aroma and taste are intense.

The mixture of dairy liquids, sugar, beans, and Brown's secret ingredient, peach preserves (enough for its pectin value but not too much to import peach flavor) are cooked for a bit.

I poured the mix, which looks like the greatest farina in the world, into an airtight container and left it in the fridge overnight.

Into the ice cream maker for about a half hour, and its consistency...

...was soft and a little runny. Perfectly fine if you like your ice cream this way. I let it freeze for several hours.

And here is your ice cream. You can spot a few flecks of vanilla. Over the next couple of days, as Mrs. The Anthony Show and the kids ate the vanilla, I prepare two additional flavors for a July 4 party:

The banana ice cream from Alton Brown required a half-dozen of the Cavendish to be food-processed, which resulted in a very intense, savory treat, but a little too much for my taste.

Alton Brown's chocolate, which took eight egg yolks, was probably one of the best chocolate ice creams I'd ever had.

BUT THEN I WENT HOME WITH THEIR WIVES AND SHOWED THEM HOW "GAY" I REALLY AM
I brought the ice cream to a party at the house of a friend of Mrs. The Anthony Show. I knew very few of the people there, so when the desserts were displayed I didn't make any sort of bombastic announcement like Behold my wonderful frozen desserts!

Shortly after my wares were tasted, the gentlemen at the party who were seated around the dessert table asked me if I actually were responsible for their creation. After I answered in the affirmative, one of them replied, "Man, this ice cream is so good, [the guy sitting next to him] said you gotta be gay!"

And that's when I realized that if I ever tried to go into business selling my food products, that would be my tagline: "Food so good, you'll think I'm gay!"

I don't think my culinary alchemy has ever received a better compliment.