Simple Science and Snow Ice Cream

Snow ice cream–one of the most fun of winter treats to make and enjoy as a family. My mom used to make it for us, sending me out to collect a big bowl of fresh white snow. And it couldn’t be the first snow of the year…subsequent snows were cleaner. It helped that we lived in the country away from big city smog. Or, so we thought…

We’d take that huge bowl of snow and slowly add a premixed blend of three cups heavy whipping cream, a half cup sugar and one teaspoon vanilla. Mmm!

Last year prior to making our own batch, we decided to do a little experiment. I sent the girls outside to fill my biggest kettle with the cleanest snow they could find. They were super picky. We then took the large kettle, and placed it on the stovetop on low heat till it was completely melted. We observed two things…first, a lot of snow amounts to very little water! The second was that the supposedly “clean” snow was filthy! It was brown with little flecks of ? in it! Ugh, disgusting.

Ruined my day, let me tell ya!

So we had to come up with a workable alternative, something the girls could still make on their own with things we had on hand…that could turn into ice cream. Hmm.

I turned to the internet and found this very handy recipe, I hope you let your children give it a shake.

Ice Cream in a Baggie

Into a good quality sandwich size ziplock bag put:

• 1 TB sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup milk

Zip the bag and put it inside a larger heavy-duty freezer bag. Surround the small bag with ice till the larger bag is half full. Now put 6 TB of salt on the ice and close the bag. Have the kids shake their bags for 5-10 minutes and ta-da…they’ve made their own ice cream. I assure you, it’s delicious!