Jacqui and i made ice cream in her very exciting ice-cream maker. I’d never done it before and now I understand a lot about life that I did not previously understand.
However, the ice cream itself is a little weird. When we tasted it, Jacqui decided she didn’t like it and gave all of it to me; I was like, what, this is awesome! but now I’m eating it and have to agree that it is kind of weird. It’s blueberry ice cream, from a book by Melissa Clark (I am madly in love with her and not even in a platonic, admiring-her-cooking-skills sort of way), and it has a very blueberry-ful flavor but is maybe too milky and not sweet enough? Or maybe blueberry ice cream is just inherently weird? I’m trying to pretend I’m eating strawberry ice cream to see how it compares, and I think I’m probably just not used to blueberry ice cream.
Anyway, long and uninteresting introduction aside, Jacqui and I had an Important, Friendship-Defining Question during the making of this ice cream.
Blueberries and sugar cooking briefly.
Me: OH MY GOD, if we cook something together, WHOSE BLOG DOES IT GO ON?
Jacqui: Well, I have a lot of posts coming up, so it can go on yours.
Me: Score. I have nothing coming up and I don’t like cooking. [Totally unrelated side note: This might be the only post this week.]
She handled it so diplomatically and deferentially that I am pretty sure I’m now her wife.
The first thing that happened—well, like the eighth that day, but the first in the making of the ice cream—was that we went to the supermarket and decided all the fruit was too expensive (we were initially planning on combining some already-existing-in-Jacqui’s-freezer blueberries with some other TBD fruit), so we just bought some wild frozen blueberries. (This is the brand recommended by our pie instructor.)
We got back to her apartment and combined the blueberries and sugar, and cooked them for a few minutes. They were already very juicy, being frozen—well, maybe that isn’t a causal thing, but there was a lot of blueberry juice in the bag—so we just waited a few minutes. We blent the blueberry-sugar mixture with the milk and salt, and then added the cream and put the whole thing in the refrigerator for two hours. In the meantime we sat around for a really long time.
Post-puréeing and -milk-adding; pre–cream adding.
Oh, important: the bowl of the ice cream machine was in the freezer this whole time. IMPORTANT.
So then, after two hours, Jacqui got out the ice cream machine and the bowl from the freezer. I was all, what are you doing, what is that, and she was like, it’s an ice cream maker, and I was like, I thought the whole thing had to be in the freezer while it was churning, and she was like, no, you’re a giant idiot (but much nicer than that). It turns out that the ice cream just has to be in contact with the frozen bowl in order for it to freeze appropriately. (Well, you do put it back in the freezer after it’s been churned, but it’s more or less ice cream after the churning in the cold bowl.)
Pouring the ice cream stuff into the already-churning ice cream maker.
She turned on the ice cream maker and poured in the liquidy pre–ice cream (important to turn on the machine first so the ice cream doesn’t freeze to the sides of the bowl before it can start churning).
So then the ice cream maker does its thing for fifteen or twenty minutes while you watch, on the edge of your seat (or toes). Then you scoop it all out into a bowl—and there will be some ice cream stuck to the frozen bowl, which is why you don’t churn the whole thing in the freezer. And also, seriously, how would that even work? It wouldn’t. There are no plugs inside freezers. Or stable surfaces, really.
This looks like ice cream.
The end. This entire post is just things Jacqui told me, while I basically watched cluelessly and was unhelpful. So you should definitely go to her blog and thank her.
Blueberry Ice Cream
from Melissa Clark’s The Ice Cream Machine Cookbook
2 c blueberries, fresh or frozen
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c whole milk (we used skim so as not to have to buy whole milk; no one drinks it)
Pinch of salt
2 c heavy cream
Heat the blueberries and sugar over medium heat. Cook about five minutes, stirring occasionally.
Purée the blueberries and sugar with the milk and salt. Transfer to a container and stir in the cream. Cover and refrigerate about two hours (or until cold).
Ice-cream-make.
I love when I accidentally leave the flash on and end up with a ridiculously, amazingly dramatic photo of ice cream. This is serious, perhaps even Shakespearean, ice cream.
I just noticed there was a variation involving blueberry lemon ice cream, and we totally should have done that. (It involves adding 2 tsp lemon zest with the cream.)
The Relatively Shitty Cook 
Yeah the lemon would have given it a lot of depth and niceness. I have no idea what people mean when they say things have depth of flavor, so I’ve just adapted it to mean whatever I want.
Also- I checked heavy cream and frozen fruit prices at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods yesterday. They are WAY cheaper at both (for the house brands, which in my experience are very high quality) as compared to food emporium.
I’m sorry neither of us love blueberry ice cream. You could probably add a tiny bit of lemon juice or zest to a bowl, or maybe some chocolate syrup? Or just use it for smoothies!
HA I do the same thing with depth of flavor. And oy about Food Emporium. Oh well. I don’t know how to do smoothies!
Mix three scoops of the ice cream with 3/4-1c. milk for a blueberry milkshake. For a smoothie, mix the ice cream, ice, and fresh fruit. Also you can put in yogurt. Your immersion blender should do the trick. You can also add nuts or other crunchies to make the shake more interesting.
Well even though it tastes weird it’s so cool that you made ice cream!! (haha get it that was an unintentional pun but now that I am aware of it and leaving it in I guess it has become intentional.)
Can you make blueberry soup?