How to Make Ice Cream Without a Machine

by Emily Beyda

My year abroad in Paris has taught me many things, like how to wear high heels on the subway without falling over, how to converse with slightly aggressive old ladies in fur coats, and, more importantly, the answer to the timeless question of how many sandwiches I can eat in a day without wanting to die (five). But one thing I really miss from the states (aside from going out dancing without having to listen to techno) is ice cream.

During the winter the only place to buy it in my neighborhood are the cafes that sell Berthillon, which claims to be the world’s best and oldest ice creamery, for close to ten euros a scoop. Not worth it! So I started making it for myself, and now I’m going to show you how to make your own seasonally inappropriate ice cream. This is because a) mint chocolate chip ice cream is the food of the gods, and b) I feel like if I eat/dress like it’s summer, maybe I’ll be able to fool the weather into changing. Based on the large amount of shorts over tights with boots and a sweater type of outfits I’ve been seeing lately, clearly the rest of Paris agrees.

If you’re worrying about your lack of an ice cream machine, don’t! My kitchen here is about the size of a shoebox, with equipment consisting of a few greasy pans, a handful of mismatched glasses, and a prodigious collection of wine openers, but, even so, it can be done! Homemade ice cream does take some time to make, but it’s also delicious, endlessly adaptable, and super impressive at dinner parties. Also, somehow I feel better about eating an entire pint of ice cream when I can picture its ingredients in my head and tell myself I’m just getting my dairy in for the day.

For the base you will need:

-1 cup whole milk

-¾ cup sugar

-2 cups heavy cream (keep cold!)

-5 (yes 5!) egg yolks

Side note: Does anyone know why all the dairy here come in boxes?

And if you want it to be mint chocolate chip, obviously:

-About a cup of mint leaves (I used fresh, dry would probably be totally fine)

-Some chocolate (chips or a sliced up bar, whatever’s lying around in the recesses of your pantry)

Here’s how to make the ice cream:

-Heat the milk and sugar in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves completely. Make sure it doesn’t come to a boil!

-If you’re using an ingredient you have to infuse into the custard — such as cinnamon, vanilla, or mint — take the milk off the heat, put the ingredient in, and let that sucker steep. In my case, it took about 15 minutes for the milk to get minty and turn an alarming shade of bright green, but other flavorings might take more/less time. Taste test early and often.

-Once you’ve got the milk saturated with flavor, strain out the leaves/remnants and put the pan back on the stove.

-Separate the eggs! This might seem like a pain in the ass, but it’s actually really easy with practice, and you can/should save the egg whites to make something like a frittata, an omelet, or, if you’re a real dessert diehard, meringues.

-Mix a bit of the warmed milk into the egg yolks; then pour the whole mess into the pan with the milk. This process keeps the eggs from poaching themselves in the milk, which would leave you with streaky yellow custard. However, if you’re like me and forget to do this step, you can just mumble something about saffron when anyone asks what the yellow patches are. Note: This may not work as well in countries where people actually know what saffron is/won’t just assume it’s a weird American thing to put saffron in your ice cream.

-Cook over the custard over low heat, stirring regularly, until you can draw a line down the back of a custard-coated spoon like so:

-Take the custard off the heat, and mix it in a bowl with the chilled heavy cream. Stick it in the fridge for an hour or so until it cools way down. Now the fun part starts!

-Put your future ice cream in the freezer in a Tupperware container. Every 45 minutes or so, check it, and if it has started freezing around the edges, get a big spoon and whip the frozen parts furiously into rest of the mixture. Pretend you’re doing arm exercises! Do this periodically for the next three to four hours. Once it’s started to set up a little, toss in your chocolate and mix it in. Warning: Do not decide to go watch “Stagecoach” with your roommates and forget about the ice cream, because it will turn into an ice brick just to spite you. If this happens though, you can just pull it out of the fridge for a little until it’s soft enough to be whipable, and proceed as planned.

-Eat! Or, if you’re like me, wake up to realize that your roommates adorable Nordic cousin has eaten all the ice cream already, forgive him because he’s adorable and Nordic, and lick the bowl.

Emily Beyda likes farmers markets, drinking mint tea in the Grande Mosque du Paris, and reading Djuna Barnes.