Snow Ice Cream!

I first saw snow ice cream last winter, but I kept forgetting to put a bowl out ahead of time to catch snow. We got six inches of snow Saturday, and in the anticipation of our first "big" snow of the year, I actually remembered and put two big bowls out on our deck.

There are several "recipes" out there for Snow Ice Cream.  I decided to go with Paula Dean's recipe.  I had the sweetened condensed milk in my pantry stocked for fall baking.  Here are the details:

1. Take 8 cups of snow.

2. Add 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk.

3. Add 1 tsp. of vanilla.

4. Mix and serve.

In the photo above I hadn't added all of the snow.  When I first read the recipe, I actually thought it called for 5 cups instead of 8 cups. I ended up adding more snow because it was so soupy.  Then I checked the recipe and realized what had happened.

My girls were thrilled to try snow ice cream.  I thought the flavor was surprisingly comparable to store-bought vanilla ice cream.  After we sampled the vanilla, I added a tablespoon of cocoa powder to the rest of the batch.  It was really good, reminding me of a Wendy's Frosty. Yum! In fact, scooping this into a cup and drinking it with a straw sounds like a great idea.  Of course the texture is icier rather than creamier, but that's not the point.  The point of snow ice cream is to give your kids yet one more reason to look forward to a large snowfall.  As if they need another reason!

Now if we could only figure out how to make snow ice cream on a hot summer day...