Hey everyone! This is Nikki here today with some ideas for some sweet summer treats. It’s that time of year in the South where it’s Hot Hot Hot and the best way I know to beat the heat is to cool off with some really delicious frozen yummies!
As a kid, summer time meant a lot of things and one of the best was home made ice cream. I’m old enough to remember a time when I had to sit on the ice cream maker while my Daddy turned the hand crank..something that looked like this:
It took a long time and a lot of work but the results were always really worth it. Nothing is better on a hot summer day than a bowl of sweet home-made ice cream. This is the recipe my Mother has always used:
- 6 eggs
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 13-ounce can evaporated milk (1-1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons)
- 1 gallon whole milk
- ice
- rock salt
In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs. Add sugar gradually, stirring constantly. Add salt, vanilla and canned milk. Add about a pint of the fresh milk and mix. (my mom heats this in the microwave about 2 minutes to “cook” the eggs. But my grandmother doesn’t..we’ve never gotten sick from them so it’s really your call)
Pour mixture into ice cream freezer can. Add enough of the remainder of the milk to fill can to the middle of the top board of dasher. (If the freezer can has a “fill” line on it, fill no higher than that line.)
Assemble the ice cream freezer. Add ice and rock salt to barrel around freezer can. Turn on ice cream maker and sit back and wait for the goodness 🙂
I had a look around Pinterest to see what other kinds of home made ice cream flavors would be fun to try and there are so many. One that caught my eye was this one from Kevin and Amanda’s Blog.
Easy Homemade Ice Cream Without a Machine
Looks yummy right? Click here for full recipe. I did try this recipe and while it wasn’t “blow me away delicious” it was good and easy to do in a pinch when you’re craving something sweet.
I also ran across this site that has several home made ice cream recipes:
And you know how Pinterest goes..you search for one thing and it leads you off in a thousand directions but I found some very yummy looking treats that I pinned to try later this summer with my kids.
How fun do these look?
Remember Jello Pudding Pops? If you were a kid in the 80’s then you have to remember that big box of frozen pudding goodness with a picture of Bill Cosby on the front. Well folks they don’t make them anymore..or if they do they’re not available where I live. So last summer I tried making my own pudding pops..similar to these:
Basically I just mixed up some chocolate pudding and added a little extra milk to make them easy to pour into molds, then froze them a few hours. The results were okay..but they didn’t come close to that taste I remembered of the pudding pops I had as a kid.
But how about these? Don’t they look fun? I definitely think I’ll try these with the kids.
And a few more kid-friendly treats to try:
Nutella Pops (um yum)
And lastly I thought I’d share a recipe that my kids and I have been loving this summer. Home made Cherry Lime-ades – kind of like the ones from Sonic. I looked at several recipes and then kind of blended them together and came up with my own. It’s super easy and super yummy. My kids ask for one every single day.
Here’s the ingredient list
1 large bottle of lime juice
1 cup sugar
1 can cherries in heavy syrup
fresh limes
fresh cherries
sprite or ginger ale or whatever co*ke flavor floats your boat 🙂 (wait I think y’all call it “soda” or “pop”…down here it’s all “co*ke”) 🙂
First you want to make the lime-syrup. Take your bottle of lime juice and pour it into a medium sized sauce pan and heat on medium heat just til warm..add sugar and warm until sugar is dissolved (don’t boil). Once the sugar is dissolved remove from heat and let cool. I pour whatever syrup I don’t use for this batch back into the lime juice bottle with a funnel and then keep it in the fridge for next time!
Now take you mason jar, or glass or whatever you’re using and pour about 1/8 cup lime juice followed by 1/8 cup of the heavy syrup from the can of cherries. This is really just to your taste so you can add more or less. Add ice to the jar/glass and then cover with Sprite or Ginger Ale. This is my kids favorite part because the cherry syrup makes the bubbles turn pink. Stir slightly and then top it off with a slice of fresh lime and/or a cherry. They are delicious!
