Toddler's Favorite Ice Cream

Learning should be fun, right? And food should be fun, right? So how about using food as a tool for learning? Yes, please!

My little guy is great at helping me measure ingredients (learning about math and following directions in a recipe). And we just took our ice cream game to a whole new level of little kid awesome.

We made it blue.

After we'd measured and mixed our 1/2 cup of cream, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 1/2 cup of milk and 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla, I gave him a bottle of blue food coloring and let him go crazy. He'd squeeze a couple drops of blue into the ice cream mixture and whisk it in. Then he'd decide it wasn't blue enough and do it again. And again. Blue ice cream was basically the only thing he talked about all day. And you can use it to teach primary and secondary colors (red+yellow=orange; red+blue=purple; yellow+blue=green) and tertiary colors if you want to get really advanced (the blue greens and variations you kind of remember hearing about in an art class once). When my little guy is a bit older, I'm excited about the possibilities of using different flavors, too. There are the mint and almond extracts you can find in the grocery store, but there's also a whole rabbit hole of food extracts and flavorings available on Amazon. Purple brownie batter ice cream? We just might have to try it...

Happy learning!

The Best Chocolate Ice Cream

I love my ice cream maker. It’s especially great during summer pregnancy. I can go from craving to eating in 15 minutes flat. And with only 4 ingredients, I usually have everything on hand for this perfect chocolate ice cream. 

Whisk together 1/2 cup sugar and 1/3 cup cocoa powder. Whisk in 1/2 cup whipping cream. Whisk in 1 1/2 cup whole milk until all combined. Pour into ice cream maker and let the magic happen. Enjoy as soft serve as soon as your desired consistency is achieved, and freeze whatever is left to enjoy later. 

Simply Delicious Ice Cream

I notice a lot of bloggers complaining about ice cream makers as being inconvenient because you have to plan ahead and put the bowl in the freezer the day before you want to make ice cream. But they’re wrong. The secret is keeping the bowl in the freezer. Take it out when you want to make ice cream, use it, wash it, put it back in the freezer. Freezers work better when they’re more full, anyway. It’s really the only logical place to keep the bowl of an ice cream maker. Besides, then you can make this whenever you want.



My basic ice cream recipe is 4:1 milk to sugar. So I usually do 2 cups of milk and 1/2 cup sugar.  Add in whatever flavoring you’re in the mood for. Once your ingredients are mixed, pour into ice cream maker (it’s important to turn on the ice cream maker before you pour in your mix) and wait 10-15 minutes. That’s it!

For my first ice cream of the season, I thought an orange creamsicle sounded good. I squeezed two blood oranges into my measuring cup (I should have added a third for more orange flavor, but I only had two) and added milk until I had two cups of liquid. Then I stirred in half a cup of sugar and poured it all in the ice cream maker.



After watching  half an episode of Sesame Street with my toddler, I checked on my ice cream.



Pretty and delicious!

Homemade Cookie Dough Ice Cream

WARNING: This recipe is dangerous. Once you know how easy and how damn amazing it is, you'll want to make it over and over and over. Don't say I didn't tell you.

I make my cookie dough first and throw it in the fridge while I get the ice cream started. This recipe is awesome and makes the perfect amount for mixing in to the perfect amount of ice cream for my favorite ice cream maker. 

Now for the ice cream. Stir 1/2 cup sugar and a generous splash of vanilla into 2 cups whole milk until dissolved. Turn on the ice cream maker and pour in milk mixture. Once it starts to freeze but before it’s all the way frozen, pour in a handful of chocolate chips and spoonfuls of chilled cookie dough. Keep mixing another five minutes until it’s mostly frozen. You may need to stir your cookie dough around so it’s not all clumped together. Eat as much as you want and freeze the rest for later. Or eat it all. I won't judge you.