Sluttishly Sweet: 5 minute ice cream in a bag!

You don't need a fancy ice cream machine to make amazing ice cream, nor do you need to keep going to the freezer and stirring your ice cream every couple of hours on order to make it (I've never had the patience for that). All you need is a bit of arm muscle power (or willing children make EXCELLENT substitutes) a couple of Ziploc bags, some ice and plenty of salt.

One of the many ace things about this method is not only do you have fresh homemade ice cream in just a few minutes but that you can make one batch of plain ice cream mix and put out loads of different flavours to customise each one.  I've used double cream for a really rich ice cream but you can use half milk and cream or all milk, it will still work, and if you want to cut down on calories a bit more then swap the caster sugar for a tablespoon of agave syrup and you can even make some of Caleigh's amazing ice cream cones to put it in!

The science bit of this is what makes it so quick and easy, the salt lowers the freezing point of the ice and so brings the temperature down to about -5C in the ice bag thus freezing your cream, the more you shake the better your ice cream will be.

5 Minute ice cream in a bag (serves 1-2)
You will need:

For the base:

• 150ml double cream 
• 1 heaped tablespoon caster sugar 

Also:

• Ice 
• 8 tablespoons of table salt.
• 1 large Ziploc bag
• 1 small Ziploc bag

Vanilla, raspberry and meringue flavour: 

• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or 1 capful extract/seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod) 
• 1 handful frozen raspberries
•  2 shop bought mini meringues

Make it!

1. Half fill the large Ziploc bag with ice then add the salt and give a good shake to mix then set to one side.
2. Make your base mix simply by combining the cream and sugar in a jug and mixing well.
3. Now you can add the rest vanilla paste and raspberries and mix well.
4. Pour your ice cream mix into the small Ziplock bag then put it inside the large one filled with ice and cover with ice, seal and then shake rapidly for 5 minutes. You'll notice quite quickly that the cream gets thick and hard, the more you shake and squeeze the better the ice cream ill be. 
5. After five minutes your ice cream is ready to eat so you can top it with the crushed meringues and maybe a few extra raspberries if you like and dive in with a spoon.

You can get really experimental with your flavours, try:

Chocolate, ginger and strawberry flavour:

• 2 tablespoons shop bought Belgian chocolate sauce
• 1 ball stem ginger, chopped
• 1 tablespoon stem ginger syrup
• 1 handful frozen strawberries

Make as above using the base mix or how about maple syrup, walnut and white chocolate chip? The possibilities are endless!