How to Make (the best!) Homemade Ice Cream

Just in time for the 4th I thought I'd share our family's tried and true homemade ice cream recipe. This recipe is for a great basic vanilla ice cream. To change it up, add whatever mix-in you'd like. Strawberries, banana, Oreos, chocolate sauce, Rolos... the possibilities are as endless as your creativity! (I made one quart of strawberry and one of strawberry banana (a huge hit!) this time.)

I use the Cuisinart 1 quart ice cream maker and love it, but you could use any automatic ice cream maker for this recipe. I also have a special helper that costs a lot extra!

**Make the ice cream the day before you'll eat it.**

To make 2 quarts, you'll need:

3 eggs (if you're serving this to a pregnant woman, use egg substitute)

1 1/4 can (the 12 oz size) evaporated milk

1/2 cup and 2 Tbsp. heavy cream

5/8 can (the 14 oz size) sweetened condensed milk

3/4 cup and 3 Tbsp white sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 package (the 3.5 oz size) instant french vanilla pudding mix

2 1/2 cups milk (plus some additional)

Automatic ice cream maker

Freeze the freezer bowl(s) the night before.

Beat all ingredients well in a medium sized bowl. Turn on your ice cream maker and pour half of the mixture in. Add additional milk to the fill line.

Let the mixture spin in your ice cream maker for the appropriate amount of time (mine is 30 minutes) and it will have this consistency:

Then you can add your mix-ins in one of two ways:

Either add the mix-ins in with the ice cream and mix an additional 5 minutes in the machine or (and this is my favorite way) scoop all of the ice cream out of the freezer bowl and into a plastic or glass container then mix the mix-ins by hand. I like this way because the fruit doesn't break down as much.

The ice cream at this point is a little soupy, so you'll want to freeze it overnight. This is what it looks like right when it comes out of the ice cream maker:

Two quarts feeds a large hungry crowd... I'm guessing it's about 12 servings... maybe more! I hope you love it as much as our family does!! It's one of my family's traditions to make homemade ice cream for July 4th. Nothing quite says summer like it! What do you do for the 4th?