Homemade "Ice cream"

Who knew making ice cream could be so easy? Well to be fair, it's more like water ice, but it certainly does the trick. It's the perfect indoor, kitchen activity to do with a toddler.


You will need a few simple ingredients, and 2 bags, preferable one bigger and one smaller. 



*We used one biodegradable ziploc freezer bag (I can honestly say this came from the first package of ziploc bags I've bought in at least 2 years!) and one reused tortilla bag which also had zip and was slightly bigger. 
                                                      
*Milk. As much or as little as you'd like. I think we used about 1 and 1/2 cups. We first got our tutorial for this recipe from Kai's grandpa's friend. She used whole milk, but we chose to use almond milk in the chocolate variety! And I can fortunately say that almond milk works just as good as regular milk, and I imagine coconut milk would be even creamier. We'll be trying that next time.


*Sweetener if using plain milk. The chocolate almond milk was already sweetened (with evaporate cane juice aka sugar), so we dumped it in the bag as is. Nothing else needed! If you are sweetening, I would recommend agave syrup (which we used the first time) or maple syrup for the kiddos, but of course you could use regular sugar too.


*A drop or two of vanilla extract if using plain milk.


*A couple tablespoons of coarse salt. Be it sea salt, rock salt, kosher salt. Any and all!


*ICE!


Ok, so the fun goes something like this...


1. Pour milk in the small ziploc bag. (With yummy additives, if using... but not the salt!) Secure tightly.

The double bag system: outer bag filled with ice and salt.

2. Place bag inside bigger bag, and add ice and salt all around bigger bag. Secure tightly.


3. Wrap a kitchen towel around bag and get shaking! Shake, rub, shake, plop it up and down on counter top, shake some more. The shaking should only last for 5-10 minutes! And voila, you have ice cream!

The finished product!

*suggestions: The first time Kai made this, we also added chopped up strawberries as per his request, and strawberry ice cream he got. Go crazy, add whatever strikes your fancy!