Ice Cream Recipe – Half and Half Cream, Sugar and Longan

I love ice cream! And I admit I have been to almost every single ice cream shop in Singapore, be it foreign brands or our home-grown labels. The cheapest, excluding MacDonald’s used-to-be 25 cents soft serve, still sets me at three plus dollars. On cheat days, I go as far as splurging a good ten plus dollars on a mini parfait.

Isn’t it good… if I could also make my own ice cream too?

Refusing to follow the norm that tells me to use full cream milk and/or whipped cream and vanilla extract, I decided to do away with all these and come up with my own recipe.

Guess what? The first attempt was a total flop!

Okay, everyone has their first. Mine was still edible, but it became hard and tough. I soon realised that you need sugar, lots of it. Adding a high-cream content product also allows your end product to become soft and creamy.

So how am I going to reconcile this?

I did some Googling before heading down to the mart for a half and half. It was basically a combination of equal parts of milk and cream – especially for those who still swear by a low- to no-cream diet.

1. Empty half a cartoon of half and half
2. Add half a cup of sugar
3. Add 2 tablespoon of lychee syrup
4. Blend well in a blender
5. Pour into a container and freeze for two hours
6. Take out, stir evenly and freeze for two hours
7. Repeat step 6

By then, the ice cream would already have a smooth, creamy texture. It was still a little bit icy, which could be improved upon by using full cream in the recipe. By the way, it was really important to stir and refreeze to prevent the top portion from being over-frozen.

This was my third attempt and the result was surprisingly good. It’s not perfect, sorry! But it was definitely exciting to make your own flavoured ice cream. I used longan because I happened to have them in the fridge too (save money!).

I also experimented another flavour using crushed cookies. It tasted like bits of crumbs mixed in with soft serve. I think it would be better with bigger cookie chunks.

I was glad the ice cream didn’t melt that fast. My suggestion is try a few variations, regardless of the fat content whatsoever. At least, get the consistency right and then venture from there.

Who knows, the perfect golden ratio would just land on you!

 

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