Taste of Summer: Hand Cranked Mango Ice Cream

 The grandkids and I made a tiny batch of ice cream when they were here - they wanted to test drive my little garage sale find of an ice cream maker that has a bowl you put in the deep freeze, with a handle on top to turn the paddles. It works great! Very speedy and not much effort required. The only trouble is that it doesn't hold much, so it is only useful for a couple of servings.

The recipe I used was a keeper for sure: Mango Ice Cream! YUM!  Our church had a picnic gathering on Wednesday evening for Independence Day and I made a large batch to take. It was a big hit.

This recipe is for a half gallon (2 quarts), but you can divide it by four and make as little as 2 pints successfully. It is smooth, creamy, rich - and makes Husband-King Paul swoon! :-)

Mango Ice Cream

4 ripe mangoes
3 cups sugar
Juice of 2 large limes (4 tablespoons)
4 cups whole milk
10 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream (whipping cream)

Peel and cube the mangoes into small pieces and place in a glass or ceramic bowl (not a metal one - the acids would react). Squeeze the limes into the bowl with the mangoes, add 1 cup of sugar and stir. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, about an hour.

Separate the eggs and freeze the whites to use later for meringue. I used the fresh country eggs we buy locally, and the rich yolks are wonderful in ice cream.

Stir the yolks and 2 cups of sugar together in a mixing bowl.

Pour the milk into a large pan and "scald" it - this means to get it hot but not simmering or boiling. It should just be steaming.

Whisking constantly (or use an electric mixer), pour the hot milk into the eggs. Be sure to whisk the eggs without stopping so they won't turn into scrambled eggs! It helps to have two people at this step. Or use your stand mixer if you have one. 

Whisk all of the milk into the eggs, then pour it all back into the pan, and keep stirring over medium heat for 4 minutes, until it has thickened slightly. Stir constantly and don't allow it to boil.

Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

When cool, combine with the fruit mixture and the whipping cream. Chill overnight and freeze in an ice cream freezer. When well-frozen, remove the ice cream to a storage container and place in the deep freeze for several hours until frozen hard. It may need to be stirred once or twice during that time.

My little ice cream freezer only does a quart at a time so it took two rounds of cranking to get it all made. Since the custard was chilled, it only took me about 15 minutes of churning per quart. I used one bag of ice and about half a box of rock salt: keep adding more ice and salt as it melts down. The salt makes the ice colder, thus it freezes faster.

I worked outside in the cool of the morning and it was really nice: lovely memories of "helping" Nandy freeze the ice cream when we were kids, and anticipation of the upcoming 4th of July events made the time go by in a dreamy hour. Would that all mornings could start so sweetly!