The First... Milkshake?!

I had everything washed and ready.  Freezer tubs had been in the freezer over night.  The ice cream and frozen yogurt bases had been sitting in the fridge for over an hour to make sure they were cold to start with.  I got everything set up, poured in the chocolate ice cream mix and waited.  My directions said it would take less than 20 minutes.  They also said to put in the mix-ins 5 minutes prior to the recipe being done.  So at 15 minutes I added the chocolate and mint chips.

And at 20 minutes, I had something the consistency of a milkshake.  It wasn't even firm enough to call it soft-serve ice cream.  Hoping I had just done something wrong with the recipe, I poured it into a freezer safe container, got everything clean and ready to go again, and then poured in the mango frozen yogurt mix.  20 minutes of swirling around in the ice cream maker resulted in another milkshake concoction.

Which got me to thinking.  When we bring ice cream straight home, and eat a little before it ends up in the freezer, it is always firmer brought home from the store than the next day out of our freezer.  In fact, ice cream that has been stored in our freezer here is always easy to serve.  It is never rock hard like ice cream from other freezers I have used.  And the directions for the ice cream maker said the freezer needed to be at least as cold as 0 degrees.  So off to the store for a freezer thermometer.

Back home with the thermometer in the freezer revealed that the freezer was NOT cold enough.  So I turned it down.  All the way down.  And now this morning it is about 0 degrees in there, and my homemade frozen treats are finally frozen rock hard.

We still enjoyed some homemade ice cream last night though, even if it was still a little soft (after nearly 6 hours in the freezer, but before I turned it down):

Chocolate ice cream with chocolate and mint chips mixed in.

It sure was tasty!