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You made your own ice cream. |
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First you had to make an ice cream mixture by simmering milk or cream, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla on the stove. You would add fruit or other enhancements next. The manual-style ice-cream maker was the old-fashioned, wooden bucket with a metal inner container for the ice-cream mixture and worked on this principle--a canister with a central, vertical paddle (called a dasher) was placed inside a container (the wooden bucket) that holds the freezing agent--ice and rock salt (which lowers the temperature of the ice) The inner canister was filled with an ice-cream mixture that the dasher stirred (gently scraping the sides of the canister) when rotated. This stirring action aerated the mixture and kept it smooth by preventing ice crystals from forming while it freezes. This required plenty of physical stamina to turn the crank that rotated the dasher. This usually took 30 to 40 minutes to make 4 to 6 quarts of ice cream. And the reward was well worth it. |
