Ice cream, you scream

Mark and his buddy Sean came running home after school yesterday. Out of breath and jumping around, they excitedly asked if they could make ice cream. They'd learned how in their after-school math and science class. 

"But we only ate one bite," Mark told me. "I got a big chunk of salt in mine, so it was gross."

"It's super easy," Sean said. "All we need is milk, sugar, and vanilla. Oh, and ice and salt."

"And bags," Mark added. "LOTS of bags. I'm double-bagging mine so the salt doesn't get in!"

"OK," I said. "Let's do it! I wanna see how you make it."

"You just mix all those ingredients and shake it," Sean said. "Mark knows the recipe."

Which was not entirely true...

"We need half a cup of milk each," Mark said. "And half a cup of sugar. And three tablespoons of vanilla." He paused for a moment, then asked Sean, "Or was it teaspoons? "

"Teaspoons," Sean answered. "But it needed more."

"Um, half a cup of sugar sounds like a lot," I interjected. 

"Oh, wait, it was two tablespoons of sugar and three teaspoons of vanilla," Sean corrected. "And half a cup of milk."

I smiled--that sounded like a much better recipe.

"And it has to be kosher salt," Mark added.

"It doesn't have to be kosher salt," Sean said. "It just has to be that big kind of salt." (Which I'm pretty sure is kosher salt.)

The boys poured and measured, adding extra sugar and vanilla. They double-bagged the ingredients, filled a gallon bag with ice and salt, and they were ready to go.

"We have to shake it for 10 minutes," Sean said. "It's like making butter--but better!"

"Let's shake it outside," Mark said. "In case the ice makes holes in the bags." 

"Good idea," I said. 

They were enthusiastic shakers for the first three minutes. Then, they lost interest--well, they shifted their interest from shaking to basketball. Which wasn't really losing interest, they reasoned--it was actually better, because the bags were still shaking as they ran around the backyard. I just laughed and watched.

Sean's dad picked him up about 20 minutes later, before the ice cream was done (even with all that shaking). As soon as he left, Mark really did lose interest in shaking and just put his ice cream in the freezer.

He forgot about it until this morning. When I checked, it was frozen, and much browner than I expected. It was a funny shape, too, so it looked like a piece of frozen chicken. I almost tossed it into the crock pot for dinner accidentally. 

I was curious about it, though. I gently opened the bag, and scraped a piece off. It tastes like...vanilla extract. Frozen vanilla extract. With a lot of sugar in it.

It wasn't exactly ice cream, unless you're 13 and deprived of all treats all of the time (as a certain coupla 13-year-olds believe themselves to be). I'm sure it will be gone when I get home, but I'm not sure if it will be gone down the hatch, or down the sink. 

I don't care either way--the best part of the whole experiment was watching them make it. That alone was worth a cup of milk, three cups of sugar and 14 tablespoons of vanilla extract. (Or whatever the final recipe was...)