Chilly. The pantry is packed, the fridge is full, but the freezer? Is there anything in there beyond a forgotten frozen casserole, a bottle of vodka, and an echo?
The freezer is a veritable no-man’s-land of kitchen project creativity. Few venture forth into its ultracold confines—yet it is capable of churning out scoopable ice cream and a plethora of frozen novelties that will reward and impress. And, surprisingly, you can make the magic happen with very little specialized equipment.
Why not take better advantage of this dark horse of the kitchen? Together, let us chill.…
These are so creamy, they’re nearly ice cream. Still, that hit of citrus helps keep the cream in balance, and these are flavor on a stick. Many recipes opt for starting out with orange juice concentrate, but simply making your own juice reduction is an investment in pure flavor. The simplicity of the ingredients creates something far beyond the sum of its parts.
Makes six 4-ounce pops
TIME COMMITMENT About 7 hours
4 cups orange juice
6 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract, homemade or store-bought
¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream
INSTRUCTIONS In a small uncovered saucepan over medium-high heat, boldly simmer the orange juice (but don’t let it splatter), stirring occasionally, and reduce it to 2 cups, about 15 minutes. Once it’s reduced, remove from the heat and stir to cool the juice slightly for about 3 minutes, then stir in the sugar, vanilla, and cream. Pour into six 4-ounce frozen pop molds and freeze for 6 hours. Be sure to leave ¼ to ½ inch of headspace at the top of each pop mold to allow for the liquid’s expansion in the freezer.
To release an individual pop, rotate it under a stream of running warm tap water for about 30 seconds. Never tug on the stick! Keep running it under water until the pop can be pulled out gently. (Should this fail, eat your pop from the mold with a spoon.)
HOW TO STORE IT Kept frozen and completely covered, these will last for up to 4 months.
Sure, okay, twist my arm. You can use regular ol’ limes if you want to. But here’s why I think finding Key limes is worth the extra effort: these tiny yellow-greenish orbs commonly found at Latin American and Asian groceries have a creamy, super-extra-tangy flavor that makes the common lime hide under its rind in shame. Thanks to the booze, these are not kid-safe, though, to your own culinary peril, the tequila can be omitted if you wish. Please enjoy this full cocktail on a stick.
Makes six 4-ounce pops
TIME COMMITMENT About 7 hours
½ cup Key lime juice
2 teaspoons minced Key lime zest
¾ cup water
7 ounces sweetened condensed milk (half of a 14-ounce can)
1½ tablespoons tequila
2 teaspoons kosher salt
INSTRUCTIONS In a bowl, combine the lime juice, zest, water, condensed milk, and tequila and stir well. Divide the salt evenly into the bottom (later, it will be the top) of each of six 4-ounce frozen pop molds. Pour the margarita mixture into each mold, leaving about ½ inch headspace for the liquid’s expansion in the freezer. Freeze for 6 hours, until solid.
To release an individual pop, rotate it under a stream of running warm tap water for about 30 seconds. Never tug on the stick! Keep running it under water until the pop can be pulled out gently. (Should this fail, eat your pop from the mold with a spoon.)
HOW TO STORE IT Kept frozen and completely covered, these will last for up to 4 months.
Wine, fruit, and a light dose of sweetness: these frozen pops are more Saturday night than Sunday morning. Why should children get all the brightly colored fun? For your next date night or cocktail party, unsheathe some of these. For the wine, don’t go hog wild, but don’t use the supercheap stuff, either. Cabernet Sauvignon or anything else that leans fruity will suffice.
Makes six 4-ounce pops
TIME COMMITMENT About 6 hours
3½ cups frozen raspberries, strawberries, or blueberries, or a combination
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup medium-bodied fruity red wine
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from 1 lemon)
INSTRUCTIONS Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend for about 2 minutes, until completely liquefied. Pour into six 4-ounce frozen pop molds, leaving about ½ inch headspace for the liquid’s expansion. Freeze until solid, at least 6 hours.
To release an individual pop, rotate it under a stream of running warm tap water for about 30 seconds. Never tug on the stick! Keep running it under water until the pop can be pulled out gently. (Should this fail, eat your pop from the mold with a spoon.)
HOW TO STORE IT Kept frozen and completely covered, these will last for up to 4 months.
Rid yourself of that enormous ice cream maker bogarting all the freezer space, I say, and rely instead on the tools you already have at hand. I encourage you to play with flavors and fold-ins for your own crazy ice cream concoctions. You’ll find recipes for basic chocolate and vanilla below.
Makes about 1 quart
TIME COMMITMENT About 7½ hours
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
½ cup heavy whipping cream
½ cup whole milk
Pinch of kosher salt
½ cup strawberry jam
Pinch of minced orange zest
INSTRUCTIONS In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the water and sugar and stir often for about 5 minutes, just until the sugar dissolves. Allow this syrup to cool completely before using. (Note that the syrup can be made up to a week ahead of time and kept, covered, in the refrigerator.)
In a large bowl with a tight-fitting lid, stir together the syrup, cream, milk, salt, jam, and zest. Cover and freeze for 2 hours. Remove from the freezer and aerate with a hand mixer on low speed for about 15 seconds. Cover and return to the freezer. Every hour for the next 3 hours, remove from the freezer and mix again. Do not overmix, as the cream can turn to butter.
After you’ve mixed the ice cream 4 times, cover the bowl tightly and return it to the freezer for at least 2 hours to freeze thoroughly. Eat immediately, as homemade ice cream is best when fresh.
HOW TO STORE IT Kept frozen and tightly covered, it will keep for at least a week, though you may need to blend again gently before serving.
INSTRUCTIONS To make chocolate ice cream, omit the jam and zest and add 3 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa powder, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract, and ½ cup water. Freeze and mix as above.
To make vanilla ice cream, make only half the syrup (using ½ cup water and ½ cup sugar), and infuse it with 3 scraped and chopped vanilla beans (see recipe for vanilla extract), increase the milk to ¾ cup, and add ½ teaspoon vanilla extract. (Omit the jam and zest.) Freeze and mix as above.
What, you want more? Feel free to substitute other flavors of jam for the strawberry. Additionally, some ideas for items to fold into ice cream include: lemon curd, Chocolate Hazelnut Spread, Cacao Nibs, ground toasted nuts, crumbled cookies and cake, chopped candy canes, shaved high-quality chocolate, and minced candied citrus peel. Also, feel free to replace the vanilla extract in either the chocolate or the vanilla ice cream with other flavored extracts, such as peppermint, orange, or almond.
In truth, an ice cream cone is merely a large sugar cookie. The trick is in the shaping, and it will probably take you a few practice cones to get a leakproof cone into shape before the cookie hardens. That said, don’t forget that a marshmallow is a great stop-gap plug for any cones that are not fully sealed on the bottom. Additionally, no one will judge you harshly if you ditch the cone shape altogether and make edible ice cream bowls instead. Seriously. Pair this with the homemade strawberry ice cream and you are a rock star.
Makes 8 cones
TIME COMMITMENT About 45 minutes
½ cup all-purpose flour
1¼ cups confectioners’ sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
3 eggs
4 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus more for the pan
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract, homemade or store-bought
INSTRUCTIONS In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt.
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs until frothy. Stream in the oil, whisking as you go, then whisk in the milk.
Add the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk until smooth. Stir in the vanilla.
Set a small cup, a small spoon, and a champagne flute or other tall, thin glass near your work area. Heat a 10-inch skillet over medium heat (you will adjust the heat as necessary as you cook the cones).
Once the pan is hot, brush it with oil. Measure 3 tablespoons of the cone batter into a small cup. Lift the pan from the heat and pour the batter into the center of the pan, tilting the pan around in a circle as you pour. The idea is to spread a thin circular coating of batter evenly around the bottom of the pan. Do your best to get the batter into a circle as large as the pan’s bottom.
Let this “crêpe” cook for about 2 minutes, until the edges are brown and the top side appears to be drying. Using a pancake turner, gently lift up the entire circular edge of the crêpe and flip it over, letting it cook for 1 to 2 minutes more, until brown. Note that it will not be an all-over brown, but will instead have a rather swirly pattern.
Remove the finished crêpe and transfer it to a work surface. As soon as it’s cool enough to handle, after 20 to 25 seconds, work quickly to shape it into a cone. Fold up a half-inch edge on one side of the circle, creating a flat bottom. Then, bring one side up and over into a cone shape (narrow at the bottom, open at the top) and fold over the second side to follow suit. Quickly and gently, place your cone in the champagne flute so that the bottom of the cone can be sealed more tightly. Using a spoon inserted down into the center of the internal fold at the cone’s bottom tip, press the seams into place to seal any gaps and to help the cone hold its shape. Ideally, looking down in the bottom of the cone, you don’t see any holes. (And if you do, inserting a marshmallow into the gap will help keep from dribbling ice cream on your shirt.)
Let the cone cool in the champagne flute as you make and shape the next cone, then remove it and lay it down on its side on a cooling rack. Make all 8 cones in this way.
Eat promptly, as the cones don’t stay crispy for more than a couple of hours.
HOW TO STORE IT Store unwrapped on the countertop for up to 3 hours.
Anyone at any time can smash ice cream between two cookies and have a frozen treat at the ready. But I was going for something more like the soft cookie/thin layer of cake that is the culinary ideal of the classic rectangular wrapped ice cream sandwich. By the way, the “bread” of the ice cream sandwich, in my humble opinion, comes in only one flavor: chocolate.
Makes eighteen 2 by 3-inch ice cream sandwiches
TIME COMMITMENT About 4 hours
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
½ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 eggs
¾ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 quart ice cream, homemade or store-bought
INSTRUCTIONS Preheat the oven to 350°F, with the rack in the center of the oven. Cut a piece of parchment paper large enough to cover the bottom of a large (17 by 12 by ¾-inch) rimmed baking sheet with a 2-inch or so handle of paper on either side. Press the paper into the edges of the pan.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and pour the oil into it, whisking as you go. Pour the egg and oil mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir in the milk and then the vanilla, mixing until the batter is smooth.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking sheet and spread it evenly across the entire pan.
Bake the sandwich-making cake for about 13 minutes, or until it is dry all over and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then run a clean knife along the edges to make sure the cake isn’t sticking. Invert the cake onto a cooling rack, peeling off the parchment, and let cool completely, about 45 minutes.
About 15 minutes before you’re ready to make ice cream sandwiches, take the ice cream out of the freezer to soften.
Invert the cooled cake back into the pan. Using a sharp knife, cut the cake in half along the shorter side of the rectangle. Spread the softened ice cream (and yes, it’s okay to mix flavors!) on one half of the cake. Using a spatula or bench scraper, carefully pick up the other half of the cake and place it over the ice cream, firmly pressing the top of the sandwich into place. Wrap that side of the baking sheet tightly in plastic wrap or foil and freeze for 2 hours or more.
If you’re wrapping your ice cream sandwiches for later use, have torn pieces of aluminum foil ready to go (I like to score my giant ice cream sandwich into eighteen 2 by 3-inch sandwiches, so I tear off 18 short pieces of foil). With a wet, sharp knife, cut 3 equal-size segments, lengthwise, and then 6 pieces on the short side (you will need to keep wetting the knife periodically). If you are truly design-driven, feel free to trim away the uneven edges of the sandwiches as well. No one will notice if you eat the trimmings.
Working quickly, wrap 4 sandwiches at a time and move them back into the freezer. When all the sandwiches have been wrapped, transfer them to zip-top bags or airtight containers.
HOW TO STORE IT Kept frozen, these will for last up to 3 months.
