So I may be the only one who looks at my small kitchen appliances and wonders if other things can be made in them. I did a search on google to see if anyone else has done this and came up with nothing. So maybe I am crazy, but I figured what do I have to lose?

My one year old is drinking whole milk right now, but no one else in the house is. Fairly often he doesn’t drink the whole gallon before it goes bad. (When I don’t catch it early enough we have buttermilk pancakes). Most of the time we only have maybe a cup and half left that he hasn’t used and we use it to make ice cream in a bag (the recipe calls for half and half which makes a creamier thicker ice cream, but we are just as happy with whole milk). But this time I had 5 cups! He hasn’t been feeling well and has just been wanting water. So this doesn’t happen often, but that is a lot of milk that could possibly go to waste. And I already have a gallon size ziplock bag in the freezer with pancake batter in it. But we are almost out of ice cream. If you ask my six year old that is an atrocity equal to the end of the world.

So I decided to try it. I figured the worse that can happen is I end up putting it in a bag and doing it the way we have been.

I have a 2 lb loaf breadmaker. I took out the metal pan and put it in the freezer for a bit to get cold. Then I added my 5 cups of milk, 10 tablespoons of sugar and my add ins. I got one of those Frosting Creations flavor packets a few weeks ago for free with a coupon. I had picked up a mint chocolate and that sounded like a great ice cream flavor to me. I also had a bag of Whopper Robin’s Eggs that I got for .67 cents at CVS last week (really I have 6 bags! So I am trying to find ways to use them). I crushed up about half a bag and added them to the container. For just vanilla you can add a tablespoon of vanilla extract. Then I put it in the breadmaker and selected my Expressbake option. It kneads the bread first for about 10 minutes and I wanted a setting that would mix things up. I only had it in there for about 3 minutes before it was fully mixed.

Put it in the freezer for about an hour. Remove use a wooden spoon to push down the sides that are starting to freeze. Put back in the freezer for 45 minutes. Remove and push down the frozen sides again. Put in breadmaker and using the same setting that kneads first. Let the breadmaker mix it up for about 3-4 minutes. Until it breaks up the big frozen pieces. Return to freezer.

Almost done. Promise!

Leave in freezer 20 minutes remove and let breadmaker “knead” it for 3-4 minutes. Do this as many times as you would like to get the consistency you want. I did it three times. The more times you do it the smaller the ice crystals in the ice cream. It seems to work really well with the knead setting because it also heats up the breadmaker a little which melts the ice cream just a tiny bit and allows it to mix it.

Now for the best part! Enjoy your ice cream.