How To Make Quick And Easy Ice Cream Without A Machine

Ice cream is surely one of the most beloved treats in the world. While many enjoy buying their favorite — maybe even obscure — flavors of ice cream from the local shop, everyone's been in the spot of craving some, not having any, but also being unwilling to leave the house to pick up a pint. In these cases, homemade ice cream can come to the rescue. 

For the most committed ice cream lovers, this might mean whipping out your ice cream maker and getting to work. However, even if you don't own or plan on buying an ice cream maker any time soon, you can still probably satisfy your cravings from the comfort of your home. In fact, all it takes is two Ziploc bags, four everyday ingredients, some ice, and a little bit of physical labor to make ice cream from home in mere minutes without needing a dedicated appliance.

All you need ingredients-wise are a cup of milk, a tablespoon of sugar, ¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a cup of heavy whipping cream. Of these four, it's most likely that you might not have any usable heavy whipping cream at your disposal, in which case you can replace both the milk and the heavy whipping cream with half-and-half for similar results.

As for creating the ice cream, it's simply a matter of adding all your ingredients together, zipping it up in your first — ideally smaller — bag, and not opening it back up until it's ready to eat. After that, it's time to prepare your second bag, by filling it with ice and some salt while leaving enough room to add the cream bag into. 

Then, it's time for that little bit of physical labor to come into play. All you need to do is shake and squeeze the interior bag of cream and the exterior bag of ice together for a few minutes until the cream begins to solidify. Wearing some winter or work gloves or using a cloth to cover while doing this isn't a bad idea, since the bags will get colder as you manipulate them. Because salt lowers the freezing point of water, you get a rapid cooling of the cream, and presto change-o — tasty vanilla ice cream, all without walking out of your door.