Snow Ice Cream (1950s Method)

Submitted by Adrienne in Reister

"January 28, 2000, is the day my mother crossed over. I miss her terribly but over the years I've learned to pull up my big girl panties and deal. Good for me! Still I think it's appropriate to remember my Mom, her sister (also passed on) and all the women who took on motherhood and kids like me in the 1950s. This recipe should bring on a memory for those of you who are my age, a chuckle to those who are at least 20 years my senior and a look at a wonderfully innocent time for the younger generation. I don't know if folks did this in other parts of the country (or the world for that matter), but if you didn't live on the east coast of the United States when it snowed, you may have missed out on snow ice cream. If a good Nor'easter blizzard hit, your Mom would wake you up early, stuff you into your galoshes (mine were yellow with metal buckles) and send you outside with a bowl to collect snow. You weren't allowed to cheat. No snow from the ground. You had to sit that bowl in a place where it would fill up with fresh snow. Of course by the time you finished playing in the back yard snow, getting thoroughly soaked through, mittens frozen to your fingers from making snow angels, the bowl was brimming over with the white stuff and your Mom was telling you to come in. If you were fortunate enough to have a mud room, you got to strip there but for those of us whose back door entered directly into the kitchen, you had to drop everything practically down to your bloomers on the newspaper your Mom laid at the doorway. So there you are almost buck naked, the blizzard wind is cold on your butt as you lean back against the cold door trying to get off those galoshes while simultaneously trying not to lose you grip on that bowl of snow. But you didn't care. It was coming! Snow ice cream. Man oh man. Your Mom would make it up right in the bowl you brought it and then pour it into those old metal ice cube trays with the handle and freeze it. But meanwhile you got to lick the bowl. This was before the days we worried about samonella poisoning. Raw eggs in any kind of batter didn't mean cooties. It just meant sweet sticky fingers wiping the bowl clean. So here's a memory folks -- snow ice cream -- the way Moms in the 1950s made it. I also included the recipe at the end for the way nutrionists say is safer -- without eggs. I haven't had it in years, yet the feelings, the smells, the sights, everything came flooding back in when I thought of it. Miss ya, Mom! Love you so much."

 

• Ready In: 2hrs 20mins
• Ingredients: 6
• Yields: 4 ice cube trays

ingredients

• 946.0 ml milk
• 1 egg
• 236.59 ml sugar
• 1.23 ml salt
• 4.92 ml pure vanilla extract
• snow

directions

1. Make a custard out of milk, egg, sugar, salt, and vanilla.
2. Remove from stove and let cool.
3. Alternate between pouring snow and custard into the bowl until no more snow can be stirred into the mixture.
4. Eat right away (before it melts on you!) or pour into ice cube trays.
5. Lick bowl.
6. Licking the bowl is a requirement.
7. Nothing matters if you don't lick the bowl.
8. *****Modern/Safer Method -- 1 cup milk or cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla.
9. Mix all ingredients together. Add snow until no more can be added. Either eat immediately or freeze. This melts very quickly and is not as creamy as the old method but still good.

Reviews

[Julie]

This was a lot of fun...and easy to make. I added some coconut flavoring and cinnamon. Also used evaporated milk. I don't have memories like yours but I'm hoping my girls will now!

 

[Ginger 77]

Wonderful recipe! Wonderful story!!! My mom would make snow cream when I was little but I grew up in TEXAS so it was very rare for us to get snow! Not sure how she made it but I made your recipe today and it was YUMMY! We had friends over to play in the snow and they loved it too! I live in Tennessee now and we get snow several times a year so I'll make this every time! Thanks!

 

[gspeters17]

Feb 10 2010 In lancaster, PA trying this with record snowfall happy sloveling !!

 

[kolleen1021]

I grew up in the Midwest in the 80's and this was how my mom showed us to make snow ice cream...raw eggs and all!!! She learned it from her mother in the 50's and I'm happy that she passed it on to me. Thanks for posting such a nostalgic recipe that I'm looking forward to reliving as the weather gets colder. I don't know how "fresh" the snow is with all this Boston polution, but what the heck...I'm already risking salmonella, might as well go all out :-)

 

[Belly Dancin Mama]

Love love love it...mostly for the memories it brought back for me as a child growing up in Snowy Northern Idaho. I made this for a group of friends and it was perfect loved giving it to my kids to carry the tradition this will be a yearly event!! Thank You!