We all scream for icecream
Ice cream is just plain delicious. Take enough cream and it is bound to be good. Summers growing up were filled with trips to Baskin & Robbins for banana splits, to Dairy Queen for ice cream bars, to A & W rootbeer to have rootbeer floats and even filled with our homemade extravaganja. The 4th of July meant turning the crank on the ice cream maker with water and rock salt splashing all over so that we could dive into the finished peach ice cream that marked the holiday. My mom had a basic vanilla recipe that she added ripe fruit to and to which I have added cinnamon to top many a pie. I have since moved from a hand cracked version to an electric version but still with ice and
Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.
-Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love
rock salt, to my current Cuisinart indoor ice cream maker. There si something to be said about turning the crank and the anticipation but there is another thing to be said about just getting the ice cream made with less mess. Here is the Purdy Family Recipe for Cinnamon Ice Cream along with a few other suggestions about how to get your dairy fix without making the icecream yourself.
Purdy Family Cinnamon Ice Cream
Ingredients:
3-½ cups sugar
½ cup flour
¼ teaspoon salt
7-cup milk
6 eggs, beaten
6 cup whipping cream
3 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
Preparation:
Combine sugar, flour and salt in a saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. Cook over medium heat approximately 15 minutes or until thickened, stirring constantly. Gradually stir about 1 cup of the hot mixture into the beaten eggs. Add the remaining hot mixture, stirring constantly. Cook 1 minute, remove from heat. Refrigerate 2 hours. Combine with the whipping cream and vanilla in a large bowl, add the chilled mixture, stirring with a wire whisk to combine. Place in an ice cream maker until firm.
Peach Ice cream: If desired, add 6 cups pureed peaches at the same time as the whipping cream.
Santa Barbara has a brand of icre cream called McConnells. McConnells, while being the producers of many flavors, has one flavor in particular on Mimi Sheraton’s 1,000 Foods to Eat before you Die list. For anyone who lived in Portland, Oregon when Coffee People was still around, 
will remember, there was an ice cream called Mindsweeper. Mindsweeper did just that-it swept your mind. There was more caffeine in a Mindsweeper shake than in all of Starbucks on a good day. It had small crunchy bits of coffee beans that added to the unique texture of this ice cream. My husband and I have periodically returned to Portland and each time we have, we lamented the demise of Coffee People and our inability to have our mind’s swept. Until now. Until my discovery of McConnell’s Turkish Coffee Ice cream. I would kiss Mimi just for this item alone if I were ever alone with her. It has the strong coffee flavor and bits of coffee beans. Want to have your mind swept? Buy Turkish Coffee Ice cream from McConnell’s of Santa Barbara.
Ever heard of hokey pokey? The variety of ice cream, not the childhood game? Hokey Pokey is New Zealand variety of ice cream where their traditional honey comb candy is mixed into vanilla ice cream. While the plain honey comb is more difficult to find, World Market stocks the chocolate covered variety. You can slightly melt your ice cream and mix in the coarsely chopped honey comb OR you can sprinkle it on top.This, I assume, is not technically hokey pokey but if you shut your eyes you can’t tell if it is mixed in or not. Your taste buds will just tell you that it is delicious.
