Ice cream is slowly frozen dairy product. Originally it was cream, but you can use half and half, milk or yogurt. To make sure you didn’t end up with a block of frozen stuff, you must keep moving the liquid moving as freezes. This was done by having a contraption with a paddle turned by a crank. Using this meant that you had to sit there for a long time turning the crank. You burned up the calories before you got a chance to eat the ice cream. There are electric ice cream makers that do the work for you. There is even a way to make ice cream in a “Baggie” for that midnight can’t-find-my-shoes craving.

One of the strangest things needed to make ice cream is rock salt, which is salt with very large crystals (the size of salt used on roads in the winter.) The salt is used to “make the ice colder” and the time needed to freeze the liquid shorter. It’s complicated.

Store-bought ice cream has additional ingredients to give it a shelf-life, help it to stay solid and make it smooth.

Homemade ice cream has only cup milk (half & half, yogurt), vanilla extract and sugar.