Good Eats at the TEOTWAWKI Café—Snow Ice Cream

Snow ice cream is a recipe I’ve wanted to try for a while now.  I failed last year and in light of the record snow accumulation that lasted well into April, I have no reasonable excuse for it.  You know, other than it was too cold to go out.  I thought I was going to fail this year as well, since we really didn’t get much snow until February, and then I was sick most of that month.  Finally, however, we got some good snow this past weekend, I wasn’t sick, and owing to the much warmer temperatures this winter, it wasn’t too cold to go out and collect the snow.  I don’t know if we got above freezing temperatures for 3 or 4 months last winter; this season we’ve only had a handful of days that didn’t get above freezing. 

I researched recipes a few months ago.  The initial research for food recipes is always easy.  Sit in a warm, comfy bed with the laptop and click away.  Eliminate recipes calling for odd ingredients (stuff that most people won’t store) or anything precious, like whipping cream.  I wasn’t going to use precious cream to make snow ice cream.  If I’ve got whipping cream, I’ll just make regular ice cream and skip going out into the snow.  Right?

So I settled on two similar food-storage-friendly recipes and tried them out earlier this week.  I will leave the recipe ingredients as they were originally written; however, I substituted homemade sweetened condensed milk (recipe below) for the store-bought. (Did you know it’s going for $2/can now?) 

If you are making this for children, add a teaspoon of sprinkles just before serving to put this dessert over the top for them.

Ready-to-Eat Strawberry Snow Ice Cream

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

½ cup frozen strawberries, partially thawed, optional

10 cups clean fresh snow

Stir the condensed milk and vanilla together in a large bowl.  Puree strawberries and stir them into the condensed milk mixture.  With a large spoon, fold in the snow 1 cup at a time.  Serve immediately.  Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the freezer.

Family reviews:  Strawberries?  Well, of course, this is the winner.  But even without the strawberries, this recipe wins.  For one, it’s ready-to-eat.  Who wants to wait to eat ice cream?  Secondly, it was actually much more like ice cream in texture than the following recipe.

Freezer Snow Ice Cream

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

1 cup milk

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

10 cups clean fresh snow

In a small bowl, stir the condensed milk, milk, sugar, and vanilla together until smooth.  Gather the snow in a large bowl.  Pour the milk mixture into the snow, stirring until completely combined.  Freeze for at least 1 hour.

Family reviews:  If you wanted to eat it right away, like the above recipe, it would have to be called snowman soup.  Adding that cup of milk is entirely unnecessary and just turns the mixture to liquid.  It’s ok after freezing, but just not quite as tasty as the strawberry ice cream above.  Stirring in some chocolate milk powder helps substantially.

Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cup dry milk
2/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons melted butter
1/8-1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pour boiling water into blender.  Add in milk powder, sugar, and butter.  Blend on high one minute.  Add in vanilla and blend a few more seconds.  Chill thoroughly before using this in snow ice cream recipes.