I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Did you know that today, the third Sunday in July, is National Ice Cream Day, which happens to be smack-dab in the middle of National Ice Cream Month? Coincidentally, soft-serve just happens to be one of those treats I will intentionally point my car hood towards, in addition to donuts, BBQ… I digress!
Our nation is hand-packed with a.ma.zing ice cream joints from coast to coast! The Mad Greek Cafe in Baker, California, across the street from the World’s Tallest Thermometer and entrance to Death Valley, has the world’s best fresh strawberry milkshake. It was so good we stopped twice traveling through!
Finnigan’s Ice Cream Parlor at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry offers a traditional banana split dripping with strawberry, pineapple and chocolate sauces, heaps of whipped cream and cherries. Be sure to share this one with a hungry friend!
True cream and cone connoisseurs definitely have to make the pilgrimage to Ben & Jerry’s Waterbury, Vermont factory. After being teased by the countless pints filled and packed behind the factory’s windows, visitors are treated to scoop of their choosing. We liked their “Chunky Monkey” flavor the best. Checking out the cow-mobile and flavor graveyard are musts too!
Here and there, along the way, mom ‘n’ pop shops serve up nostalgic hand-packed scoops and soft serve in cones crisp for the choosing. The ladies at the Sweet Shoppe in Hodgenville, Kentucky, near Lincoln’s birthplace, pile waffle cones high with flavors like s’mores, spumoni and banana cream pie. You can also peruse and purchase jars of locally made jams, jellies and pickled items, while drooling over their handmade fudge and cookies. But if hard ice cream isn’t your lick, Velvet Cream in Hernando, MS (aka “The Dip”) has one of the best, mouth-coating vanilla soft serve cones. A world map dotted with push-pins from travelers calling every continent home attests to the popularity and fame of The Dip’s swirled sensation!
We’ve been eating ice cream or some version of this frozen treat since the Persians first poured grape juice over packed mountain snow. A few years later, around 697 A.D., the Chinese Tang Empire figured out that freezing sweetened dairy with salt and ice worked. But the scoops we enjoy dripping down our hands is credited to Italian Antonio Latini from 1694. Volume 2 of his cookbook Lo scalco alla moderna or “the Modern Steward” contains a recipe for sorbetti, known to us today as “Italian Ice” or sorbet. Sorbet (a French word) was served as an iced drink after appetizers and just before the roasted meat course. Why? To aid digestion. But don’t confuse this with sherbet, ice cream’s cousin, which contains dairy.
We can credit Thomas Jefferson for bringing sorbets and early versions of ice cream to the 13 Colonies from France. As American Minister to the Court of Versailles in the 1780’s, Jefferson was introduced and inevitably ate his fill of this custardy concoction in Paris. He was so enamored with it, that upon his return to the states, he had glass ice cream molds packed in between his many, many crates of French wine. His hand-written receipt for ice cream is below, but an easier-to-read version is here. Other founding fathers who shared Jefferson’s sweet tooth for ice cream include Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and James Madison.
Making ice cream is quintessential to backyard BBQs, family reunions, and elementary science fair experiments on changes in matter. Some recipes contain cooked custards loaded with eggs and cream, and require a chill-churn time using melty bags of ice mixed with rock salt. Today’s recipe, 3-Ingredient Orange Sherbet, needs an ice cream mixer/freezer, but only asks for a short list of ingredients–sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream, and your favorite brand of orange soda (pop, if you’re from the West).
Making this sherbet can’t get any easier. Whisk all of the ingredients together, pour into your ice cream mixer/freezer, and churn until its at soft-serve consistency. Empty this creamy goodness into a freezer-safe container and freeze until firm.
To make a Dreamsicle Float, just add 2-4 scoops of 3-Ingredient Orange Sherbet into a tall glass and pour your favorite cream soda on top. Add a wide straw and slurp away!
Swap out the soda flavors to make other funky, fun flavor combinations like:
- Jungle Juice–Use grape soda in the sherbet. Top with fizzy fruit punch.
- Peachy Keen–Sub peach-flavored soda in the sherbet. Pour cream soda over.
- Rooting Tootin’–Use a red soda (like Big Red or Cheerwine) in the sherbet. Top with cream soda.
- Citrus Smash–Sub a grapefruit flavored soda in the sherbet (like Fresca or Squirt). Top with lemon-lime soda.
3-Ingredient Orange Sherbet & Dreamsicle Floats
With only three ingredients–heavy cream, orange soda, and sweetened condensed milk, homemade sherbet is minutes away! Personalize your flavors by substituting different soda flavors.
- Prep Time: Approximately 1 Hour
- Total Time: 0 hours
- Yield: About 5 Cups of Sherbet 1x
Ingredients
2 cups of your favorite orange-flavored soda*
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
Your favorite brand of cream-flavored soda*
Instructions
In a bowl, whisk orange soda, heavy cream, and sweetened condensed milk together. Pour into an ice cream maker. Churn until the mixture reaches a soft-serve consistency. Pour into a freezer-safe container and freeze until firm.
To assemble floats, put 3 to 4 scoops of orange sherbet into a tall glass. Top with cream soda. Enjoy immediately.
Notes
*Get creative! Substitute different flavors of soda for both the sherbet and float. We like the combinations of grape and fruit-punch sodas; peach and cream sodas; red soda with cream soda; and grapefruit and lemon-lime sodas.
IMNPB
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