Make Ice Cream

Make Ice Cream
Homeschool Activity for
Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! Americas' Sproutings
written by Pat Mora, illustrated by Rafael López

Ages 7 and up
Adult Supervision Suggested
Skill Level: Easy

Making ice cream is a fun hands-on activity to follow reading Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico!

Below is a simple recipe for vanilla ice cream. While tossing around the bags of ice cream mix, talk about other ice cream flavorings. Chocolate and pecan are also featured in Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! and are excellent additions to the basic mix. You might also talk about other foods made with vanilla. Additional topics to explore are freezing, melting, and evaporation; and children might enjoy researching how their favorite foods are made.

RECIPE FOR HOMEMADE ICE CREAM
Total activity time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Makes about two servings

Materials:
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup heavy cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
ice
salt (Kosher or table salt is fine)
zip-top freezer bags, sandwich size
zip-top freezer bags, gallon size

Combine the first three ingredients in a small saucepan and heat on the stove until the sugar is dissolved and the cream thickens slightly. Do not let the mixture come to a full boil.

Let the mixture cool slightly. Then pour it into a sandwich-sized zip-top bag and seal well. The bag should be no more than half full. Pour some of the mixture into a second sandwich-sized bag if necessary.

Put ice and salt in a gallon-sized bag until it is about half full. Place the smaller bag containing the ice cream mixture into the larger bag and seal well.

Wearing winter gloves (the bag will get very cold), toss the bag around, knead it gently, and generally keep it moving until the mixture has reached the consistency of ice cream.

Spoon into bowls and enjoy!

Author/educator Anastasia Suen began teaching in the home. The author of over 100 books for children, she has also taught kindergarten to college in the classroom. Today homeschoolers use her blogs for book activities, reading lists, and writing lessons.