Shaken not Stirred...Kids In the Kitchen Craft
With summer coming to an end the kids are getting their 'grump' faces on.
I have to admit I'm right there with them. I am not ready to get up early (ok I'm always up early, but not in function mode) and hurry little creatures out the door for school.
Kate had her little bestie over for a sleepover and I thought to myself....hey why don't we do a little school science work. The groans ensued .
That is until I told them we were making Ice Cream.
Here's what you'll need for each child:
1 gallon and 2 sandwich size ziploc baggies
1 cup of half and half
2 tbs sugar (for those that have your vanilla bean sugar go for it)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup salt (table will work fine)
lots of ice
So here's what you do.
Fill the gallon size bag half full of ice. Pour in the salt and shake it a bit to mix
Fill the sandwich baggie with half and half, sugar, and vanilla seal.
Place that baggie into the last sandwich baggie and seal (explain later)
Please make sure all the baggies are sealed or you will have a huge mess on your hands
Now this is the fun part (for those watching)
Shake the bags....shake shake shake shake for 5 mins.
5 minutes seems real quick when you are not shaking a really super cold bag.
The girls faces crack me up...Kate looks like she has a 'in pain i'm gonna cry smile' and her friend is making a wacky face ...
Kate and her friend's hands were freezing off. They kept quitting and I kept cheering "GO GO GO GO GO" (ok I did have to step in and help shake so they could rest..and my hands were freezing) Gloves might be nice in the future.
At the end of 5 mins take your ice cream baggies out of the salt and ice. Here is where the 2nd sandwich baggie came in handy...The first sandwich baggie is salty so remove that one and discard. Now you have a clean baggie to eat your ice cream from. (we learned this the hard way...our hands were salty from holding the baggie and made the ice cream taste salty. We even squeezed it into a bowl...but yet again the salt from the baggie dripped into the ice cream. No one likes salty ice cream)
The yummy goodness
This is a super fun way to get your kids in the kitchen and teach them a little science at the same time.
Here's what the lesson is..
How Does it Work?
Salt lowers the freezing point of the ice and creates an extra-cold brine that absorbs heat from the milk mixture, causing the mixture to freeze.
Why shake the bag? The motion creates smoother ice cream by breaking up large ice crystals and allows the ice cream to freeze uniformly.
Beyond Vanilla
You can customize your ice cream before or after the big shake up by adding flavored syrups, bits of fruit, crushed cookies, or small candies.
If you add extra stuff to your ice cream afterwards, be sure to fold it in gently or you might end up with ice cream soup!
There you have it....now get in the kitchen with your kids and have a little fun before the whining school starts.
Oh...we also did a little fun things with photoshop...the girls had some more giggles
Our take on the Horsemaning trend...(sort of)
Oh summer days....oh how we'll miss you.
Countdown begins....this is our last week of freedom.
Comments