Make It Yourself: Ice Cream

We attempted to make our own ice cream last year and it didn't work so well.  It was messy, expensive and hardly ever worked right.  It was discouraging - we ended up selling our ice cream maker and continue to this day to buy store bought.  With summer coming though I'd like to break the habit and start making our own again.  Robin from Our Semi Organic Life may have encouraged me.  She and her husband make homemade ice cream and just seeing the pictures on her blog made me want to run out and buy a new ice cream machine.  I was thrilled when she said she would share her ice cream making experience this month on Make It Yourself.  Along with making ice cream Robin also posts about their newlywed life being healthy, happy with laughter, cooking & their cat on her blog.  Check it out!  

Here is Robin:

A scrumptious DIY ice cream is easy to make and can be really fun!  We've tried a bunch of types of recipes but like this one the best!  Since we're going somewhat dairy free in our household we made ours with 'So Delicious' brand vanilla coconut milk.  You can use regular milk.

We love making homemade ice cream and haven't purchased store bought stuff in years!  We like how you can control what goes in it and since we're 'semi organic' we like to add as many organic ingredients as we can.  That means every time it's different and awesome!  Another thing that's great is how cheap it is!  Just check out the freezer section at your local store and gasp at how much some people pay for tubs full of chemicals and factory made flavors.  Don't be a sucker!  It's really easy and normally you'll just need to grab extra milk since you may already have the other ingredients.

Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe:

• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups 'So Delicious Coconut Beverage'
• 3 1/4 cups (about 2 cans) Coconut milk (not light coconut milk)
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Before starting, make sure you follow your machine's instructions, which usually includes freezing the mixing bowl overnight! 

Place the cocoa & sugars in a bowl & stir. Add the So Delicious and use a mixer or whisk to combine until the solids are dissolved (about 1 min).

Stir in the coconut milk & vanilla. Turn on ice cream machine & pour the mixture into the frozen bowl.  It takes about 20-30 minutes until it's soft and creamy. At this point it's perfectly edible!  For a firmer texture, transfer to an airtight container & freeze for 2 hours or more. Remove from freezer 15 minutes before serving.

We packaged it in a leftover plastic ice cream
tub from another gelato brand called Talenti.

Enjoy!