Guest Post! Thai Iced Tea Ice Cream c/o Susan Howson

A strong argument for making your own ice cream

Today’s post was written by the inimitable Susan Howson. How do I know she’s inimitable? I’ve literally tried to imitate her many times in the hopes of improving my own writing, and it’s impossible, that’s how I know. I met Susan in a long bygone era when people still blogged and there was a thing called RVANews here in Richmond. She was my editor, and she did this thing called a joke edit where she made me sound wittier than I could ever hope to be. Many is the time I’ve wished for joke edits IRL, but they just don’t exist. Later, Susan worked for a ~redacted major news site~ where she very graciously commissioned me to write about my twin passions, Cheez-Its and the Grateful Dead.

Disappointed by my lack of content, Susan offered to write a post for this very newsletter, and who was I to refuse? I was no one to refuse, so I didn’t. I accepted! However, if I keep writing, this will soon veer away from a guest post and toward just a normal post or maybe something like a collab post, so I’m going to stop now, bye!

Oh wait, no, one more thing! Susan is also one of the best readers I’ve ever known, truly an A+ reader, and she has a newsletter with excellent book recommendations (which she didn’t even neglect in order to write this, she did both. Inimitable!) called Eels, to which you should subscribe immediately, especially if you like books. Ok, now bye for real!

The case for making your own ice cream

AI-generated ice cream but very real-looking!!

There are two reasons to make your own ice cream, and before you’re like “lol I can buy ice cream at the store thank you VERY much; delete” I am begging you to at least read a little bit more.

Reason one: You probably like ice cream (I assume you’re alive and have taste buds) and the stuff you can make at home is better than the stuff you can buy at the store because it doesn’t contain all the stabilizers needed to make it last forever. That is just science fact! It is also dead easy and cheap to do. That’s like three reasons!

Reason two: It allows you to finally get creative. I mean, listen, maybe you already are, and that’s great. I am a very good baker, and very good bakers like me often pass as good cooks because we can pull off an impressive Thanksgiving dinner. But that’s only because a sheaf of carefully researched recipes told me exactly what to do at every turn. 

In other words, I am not an intuitive or creative cook. I am a superb recipe follower. “Can anyone cook this squirrel??” they’d say in the post-apocalypse, and I’d say “Exactly how high should the campfire flame be!? Do we have an instant read thermometer anywhere in these terrifying woods!?”

But ice cream! Ice cream!! It’s like this neat food somewhere between baking and cooking that is actually really forgiving and allows you to mess around with flavors to your heart’s content once you find a good method you like (more on that in a sec).

Plus, everyone who is alive and has taste buds loves it. Most recipes make two pints — that’s one pint for you and one for a friend. Do you want a ton of friends all of a sudden? I don’t know, maybe you don’t. Then, boom, that’s two pints for you.

Here’s what you need to get started.

Some sort of ice cream maker

An ice cream maker is a very, very cold vessel that either spins around a specifically shaped “dasher” (which keeps it from turning into a block of delicious ice), or stays in place while the dasher itself spins within it.

There are two basic kinds:

Starter: The kind that has a canister that you keep in your freezer because it really does take a couple days to be as cold as you need it to be when you start churning. 

• Pros: Cheaper (America’s Test Kitchen consistently rates Cuisinart’s model the highest, and it’ll run you about $70 — though I do recommend grabbing one from Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. People get these as wedding gifts, and because they have not read this Substack, they don’t understand it is essential to their happiness and possible health of said marriage.)

• Cons: You can’t make multiple batches because you’ll need to refreeze the canister each time. But honestly I have never once done this, so it’s fine. I used a Cuisinart for many years.

Next-level: A compressor machine that essentially is its own freezer. This is the kind you see in cooking shows. I have upgraded to this, but I make ice cream constantly because I bribe my family into loving me.

• Pros: Turn it on, wait a few minutes, and you’re in business. The ice cream is ready faster too. 

• Cons: Way more expensive (Whynter is the brand you want, it tops $300, and you will not find it used) and heavy.

The very best book(s)

I refuse to use internet recipes for ice cream and you should, too. Except for, uh, the one I’m about to provide you.

Start with Jeni, she of the Splendid Ice Creams. And then end with Jeni. Her first book, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, was a game-changer. Jeni’s Splendid Desserts is no longer in print, for reasons I can’t fathom, but it has a bunch more recipes. Pick up a used one, because you’re going to want Extra-Strength Root Beer ice cream. 

I used to make ice cream in the traditional way — tempering eggs and all that. No more! Tempering eggs is a pain and gives you a crumbly texture you didn’t know you hated until you had the alternative! Jeni has discovered a way to deal with the science of dairy fat and whatever (I am not a scientist) that makes it much easier and better. Instead of eggs, she uses a cream, milk, corn syrup (like, actual corn syrup, not high fructose corn syrup), cornstarch, and cream cheese situation.

However, I swear to you, when Jeni’s™ finally came to the shelves of our town grocers, my family and I, accustomed to the Susan’s™ stabilizer-free version, tasted the mass-produced variety and nearly spit it out. You can make Jeni’s at home for so much cheaper than Jeni’s™ and with much better results. Go figure!

And yes! Her second book, Jeni’s Splendid Desserts, includes her vegan base!

So once you get her method down, you can start mixing and matching, adding your own weird ideas for flavors, and seeing what works. I highly recommend root beer extract, herbs from your garden, food-grade essential oils, boiled cider, blackstrap molasses, and jam. Lots of jam. (Also, you can just do chocolate, vanilla, and regular stuff. Don’t get me wrong. That’s good, too.)

But Jeni aside, here’s a recipe I developed for Thai iced tea ice cream

I failed to take a photo of my last batch, so I made AI do it for me. The result (pictured at the top of this email) was too elegant so I asked it to make the background “messy house.” Not sure what that sauce is, but there will be no sauce involved. The rest is pretty accurate though!

If you like Thai iced tea, I demand you try this! It takes zero skill, doesn’t even involve the stovetop beyond boiling water — though, you do have to hunt out Thai iced tea bags. I tried two Asian grocery stores in Richmond and came up short. Here’s what I ended up getting. 

One caveat: Because of the lower fat content in this ice cream, it does tend to get a little crystally and sherbetty in the freezer after a few days. Hoover it up quick!

Ingredients

• 2 bags Thai iced tea

• 1.5 cups boiling water

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk

• ½ cups half and half

Directions

Put the two teabags into a large heatproof bowl and pour the boiling water over. Let steep for five minutes. You want the tea strong. Remove the teabags.

Whisk in the sweetened condensed milk.

Whisk in the half and half.

Fill another large bowl with ice water.

Pour the mixture into a Ziploc freezer bag and seal tightly. Put the bag into the ice bath so that the contents are submerged. Let chill for 30 minutes or so, adding more ice as necessary, until the contents are chilled. 

Churn the mixture in your ice cream maker (and promise me your canister has been in the freezer for at least two days) until it has the consistency of soft serve. DO NOT let it go until it looks like ice cream you would eat in your bowl. I can do this by hearing the sound the machine makes, because I am basically a witch at this point. You’ll get there one day and we will know each other just by sight. But for now, just check on it starting at about the 25 minute mark.

Then, pack it into a container. A loaf pan you keep in your freezer works well. I use this. Or these if I’m giving pints away. Immediately throw it into your freezer and leave it alone for several hours. It will emerge perfect and ready to consume!