Ice cream machine

When I was younger, our family always got together on July 4 at someone's house that had a large yard and we would often make ice cream with an old-school ice cream maker with ice and a hand crank. It was always yummy but often runny (because we were too impatient to churn it enough or to put it in the freezer after it was done).

 

Now we are in Seattle where the weather is fair and they don't seem to take ice cream as seriously. Whereas in Minneapolis we had the choice of two different Dairy Queens to walk to on a hot summer day, we have to actually DRIVE to Dairy Queen (and pay a toll!) if we want some in Seattle. You can imagine our delight when a great ice cream place opened in our very neighborhood, called Molly Moon's. Despite being mediocre ice cream, they became wildly popular because they had the right combination of yuppy flavors (like salted caramel and blackberry sage), organic ingredients and locally-sourced food items. Eventually, they modified their recipes until their ice cream became pretty decent. Over time it became one of our top favorites, although we would never dare compare it to one of the wonderful midwest creameries.

Last year, Molly Moon's ice cream published a recipe book which inspired the appearance of one of the new-generation ice cream makers - made by Cuisinart - under our Christmas tree. For the first flavor we chose cinnamon. It's a surprisingly simple recipe; milk, sugar, cream, cinnamon.You cook it, cool it, stick it in the machine (which cools it some more and churns it for you - no hand crank!), and then voila! Ice cream!