Frugal fun: Julie’s Kick The Can Ice Cream

Earlier this week on Facebook I mentioned that I made an iced coffee drink out of instant coffee sample.  Julie commented with this recipe for “Kick The Can Ice Cream” and said it’s awesome when you put some instant coffee in it!  I asked if she’d write a bit about the origins of the recipe and she graciously obliged.

Here is Julie’s Kick The Can Ice Cream!

Moms are always looking for new ways to keep their kids entertained and happy.  Sometimes we start to run low on good ones though…I was at that point when this idea and recipe came along and became a family standard for those early spring “it’s finally warm, can we play outside?” days, hot summer days where the kids declare “I’m bored” every 5 minutes, and late fall “it still feels like summer” days.

I’m also a Girl Scout leader and that is where I ran across this idea.  A few years ago I went to a workshop that covered every aspect of surviving outdoor camping with a troop of girls.  I went because I needed some new ideas; I was running low.  So off I went to learn about campfires and cooking outdoors and in general, ideas for keeping a group of 12 little girls entertained and happy…sounded perfect.  It was, and I came home with a whole bunch of new ones and a big binder with more…this one was buried in that binder.

I had seen those super cool looking ice cream making balls, but they are about $40 and that wasn’t in the Girl Scout troup’s or my budget.  Coffee cans…well I wasn’t sure that would work, but it sounded like fun so we tried it out at a meeting and it was fun and yummy.  Then my daughter and her friends started to ask to make it at our house…and it soon became the go-to recipe for fun.

Pretty soon it was one of my standard suggestions whenever I heard an “I’m bored”.  There is nothing quite like putting something together with your own hands, rolling the cans around in anticipation of the result, and then enjoying the yummy ice cream you made at the end…

Yes, this recipe is easy enough for kids to make themselves.  My daughter is now 10 and just grabs the supply box and makes this on her own.  She was about 7 when we started making this.  We’ve adapted it a bit, simplified the recipe, and tried many different flavors… Here is how we do it:

Equipment:

1 – 1 lb. Coffee can with plastic lid, cleaned

Helpful Tip:

If you use metal cans, don’t leave them sitting with the salt in them as they will rust…and you are going to want to make this again, so rinse them well right away.

1 – 3 lb. Coffee can with plastic lid, cleaned

Duct tape

Rubber scraper

Crushed ice (about 10 cups)

1 ½ to 2 cups rock salt

Ingredients:

1 cup milk

1 cup whipping cream

½ cup sugar

½ tsp. vanilla extract

Chopped nuts or other flavorings as desired, such as:

• Chocolate Ice  Cream:  add 2 tbsp Hershey’s syrup, throw in some mini chocolate chips or bits of broken up candy bar too if you have them
• Caramel Ice Cream:  add 2 tbsp of Caramel Ice cream topping
• Strawberry Ice Cream:  add 2 tbsp Strawberry syrup or ½ cup of fresh strawberries
• Coffee Ice Cream:  add 2 tbsp Coffee syrup or substitute ½ cup coffee for ½ cup milk or add 1 tbsp instant coffee crystals
• Peppermint Ice Cream:  crush up 2 of those candy canes left over from Christmas last year and toss them in
• Peach or other Fruit Ice Cream:  add up to ½ cup of fruit of choice, chopped into small pieces or pureed
• Think latte of the month flavors:  peppermint mocha (1 tbsp coffee granules, crushed peppermint and chocolate chip combo), pumpkin spice (pumpkin and some pumpkin spice), caramel macchiato (caramel, chocolate, and coffee)…you get the idea.  Frequently there are 2 cans of ice cream going… Mom’s can and the kids’ can!

Instructions:

1.     Into the 1-lb can put milk, whipping cream, sugar, vanilla extract, and nuts and or fruit or other flavorings and stir until combined.

2.     Place lid on the can and securely seal with duct tape.

3.     Put the 1-lb can into the 3-lb can and pack crushed ice around the smaller can alternating layers with ½ cup rock salt.

4.     Place lid on the larger can and securely seal with duct tape.

5.     Roll the can back and forth for 20 minutes (it might be called Kick The Can Ice Cream, but if you have any soccer players the can won’t make it to round two if they kick it.)  Keeping the can in motion is important, the more it moves the smaller the ice crystals in the ice cream will be and the smoother and nicer the ice cream.

6.     Rinse the 3-lb can in sink (use cold water) and untape.

7.     Remove 1-lb can over sink and rinse; then untape and rinse again.  (You do not want to get any of the salt in the ice cream).

8.     Open can and serve ice cream.  Enjoy!!!

There, now you know one of my greatest not-so-secret secrets…and you don’t need anything more than a few things out of your refrigerator and a couple of cans from your recycle bin to make it.  It’s a lot cheaper and a lot more entertaining than chasing down the ice cream truck…and when there hasn’t been a good sale on Starbucks ice cream in a while it really comes in handy for my coffee ice cream fix!

Thanks so much for sharing, Julie!

• Want to get some free coffee samples to make Kick The Can Coffee Ice Cream?  You can request six free packets of Nescafe Taster’s Choice samples from their Facebook page!