Tis the Season for Cinnamon and There’s Always Room for Ice Cream!

• December 11, 2014
• Mari Bickmore
• no comments

EASY! Cinnamon Ice Cream

I was in the mall the other day and smelled cinnamon! I knew I didn’t need it, but I figured what the heck I would get a small Cinnabun.  I just knew that’s what that warm aroma had to be!  The food court was upstairs, so up the escalator I went in search of warm, gooey deliciousness.  Turns out there was no Cinnabun or anything else up there remotely cinnamon.  Now I truly believe it was some kind of plug-in Glade or something they were piping in.  There was just the spot in the middle of the mall, underneath the food court, that had that scent and nowhere else.  Just a little something to tickle your taste buds and send you up to the food court.  That was wrong, but it saved me a couple of thousand calories.

Cinnamon does zone in on the holidays; however, it also brings me back to younger years. I had some great friends who I hung out with in Houston back in the day.  We ate out a lot and listened to a lot live music (a lot of Shake Russell).  Oh, those were the days my friend.  One of the best ice cream places in Houston, in my humble opinion, was the Udder Delight, right next door to Marini’s Empanada House (also a fav) located in the lower end of Westheimer.  They made their own ice cream fresh, daily.  Boy does that bring back a floodgate of memories of a lot of good restaurants, or at least I remember them as being great!  But back to the ice cream…one of my favorite flavors at the Udder Delight was the cinnamon. As I was feeling a little nostalgic the other day, and it is near Christmas, I decided to try to replicate that ice cream.  If I do say so myself, I think it turned out darn close,  though a few years have gone by so I might be delusional. Maybe one of my old buddies will make this and let me know if I hit the mark.

I have a small Cuisuinart counter-top ice cream maker.  After I made this ice cream, I ordered the larger, 2-quart  model…because if you are going to make ice cream, you may as well end up with enough to last awhile.  This recipe is so easy and turns out incredibly well.  I used organic cream and 1/2 and 1/2, but it won’t make a difference if you don’t.  It’s just the way we roll.

Ingredients

1 cup ½ and ½

2 cups heavy whipping  cream

1 cup Baker’s sugar (or white granulated sugar)

2 tsp cinnamon (You can adjust this to your taste)

1 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp salt

Instructions

1.  In a medium bowl, mix together ½ and ½, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and salt.

2.  Whisk well and then place in the freezer to chill for a couple of hours.

3.  Place this mixture into an ice cream maker and process until set; about 20 to 30 minutes.

4.  Scoop into a plastic or glass container that you have cooled in the freezer while the ice cream was processing, then freeze for a few more hours or until set.

When I get the larger ice cream maker, I will update with new ingredient amounts.  You can subscribe to this blog just up there on the left!