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History of Ice cream

Ice cream is one of the most popular sweet treats around today, but where did it originally come from??

The first records of desserts similar to ice cream come from as early as the 4th century BC. King T'Ang of Shang in China had among his serving men 94 "icemen" to bring ice down from the mountains. He made a concoction of ice, fermented milk, flour and camphor. At a similar time, Emperor Nero in Rome ordered ice brought down from the mountains which he had mixed with fruit, nectar and honey.

The Chinese are credited with the first ice cream machine. They filled pots with a syrupy mixture and placed them in buckets of snow and salt. Salt was an important breakthrough in the creation of iced desserts. When added to ice, it makes the ice freeze at a much lower temperature, meaning that a bucket of snow and salt can get as low as -14 degrees Celsius.

In the 1660s in cities such as Naples, Florence and Paris, concoctions similar to modern day sorbets known as 'water ices' became popular. In 1664 ices with sweetened milk emerged in Naples. The first emergence of ice cream in England was in 1671, at the feast of St. George at Windsor Castle. Plates of strawberries and iced cream were served only to the very important royals at the head of the room.

Soon after this wealthy people began building ice houses under their estates and they farmed ice in winter. Custard based ice cream originated in France in the 18th century. In 1843 Nancy M Johnson patented the artificial freezer and the first ice cream machine with a rorating paddle. This prevented the need to stir it every so often and made a smoother texture.
In 1850 Jacob Fussell in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania had excess cream left over from his dairy farm. He made ice cream and sold it in Baltimore. This was the first ice cream shop in the world and this soon became very popular.
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Easy Vanilla Ice Cream

Makes 1 quart
Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, scraped
Directions:
Combine cream, milk, sugar and vanilla in a saucepan and heat until the sugar is completely dissolved.
Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and stir in to the cream mixture just before removing from the heat.
Pour into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator or in an ice bath until completely cool.
Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Store in an air tight container and freeze for an additional 2 hours.

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