How to Make Frozen Treats without an Ice Cream Maker

If you love frozen treats but don't own an ice cream machine, there's still a way you can make your own home made ice creams, yogurts and sorbets. First you have to add in ingredients to the mixture that keeps it from freezing solid, and secondly you need to mix the liquid you are trying to freeze so no large ice crystals form. 

So how do you make a creamy and soft frozen treat? There are a number things you can add to your recipe so it doesn't freeze into ice:

Alcohol

Add 3 - 4 tablespoons of 40 proof + alcohol to a liter (32 oz) of liquid, and the alcohol will keep the ice cream / sorbet / yogurt from being hard. Vodka, Amaretto, Gin, White Wine or Flavored Liquors will all work.

Sugar

Lots of Sugar in your freezing liquid will also help to prevent it from freezing hard, but if you want a sugar free fruit sorbet or splenda sweetened ice cream, you will have to use the other methods mentioned.

Gelatin or Agar Agar

If you add a teaspoon of agar agar powder or unflavored gelatin per liter (32 oz) of liquid, it will prevent the frozen treat from turning to ice and gives it a nice creamy texture. This works especially great for sorbets. 

Fat

Fats do not freeze. Try putting some olive oil into the freezer and see what happens. If your treat has plenty of fat, like cream, egg yolks, or milk fats, it will be creamier and have a smoother texture. Of course if you are making fat free frozen yogurt or fat free sorbet, this might not be the way to go.

Now for the Freezing and Mixing:

First pour the liquid you intend to freeze into a tupperware container or large yogurt container. 

Put this container into your home Freezer

Every 20 minutes take the container out of the freezer, and mix it really well with a fork, hand blender, or whisk. Make sure to break up any ice pieces into small bits and incorporate air into the mix.

After 2 - 3 hours you should have a frozen desert!

Basic Ingredients:

32 oz Plain Yogurt with plastic container (greek style works the best)

Sugar or Splenda to taste (I add about 4 tablespoons of splenda for sweet yogurt, but frozen plain yogurt is also very good)

3 - 4 tablespoons of hard alcohol (should be 40 proof -- vodka, amaretto or sparkling white wine works really well) The alcohol keeps the yogurt from hardening solid and can add a nice flavor to the yogurt if you use a flavored liquor. This amount of alcohol shouldn't have a strong taste and won't get anyone intoxicated.

Flavorings:

You can flavor your yogurt with anything you like, frozen fruit, cocoa powder, vanilla, chocolate chips, mint extract, green tea, ginger or anything else!

In the case of this recipe I'll use peaches, cinnamon and amaretto:

2 peaches skinned and sliced (or you can use frozen peaches and chop them up a bit)

Cinnamon to taste

Recipe:

Mix all the ingredients together and pour back into the yogurt container with about an inch of free room at the top. Eat the leftovers if you have too much.

Put the top on the container and put the yogurt container with your yogurt + flavorings into your home freezer

Every 20 minutes mix up the yogurt with a long metal spoon or fork, a wand blender or a cooking chop stick.

In 2 - 3 hours you will have creamy frozen yogurt!

This is a great summer treat and really satisfing. No sugar added!

Ingredients:

1 large ripe honeydew melon

3 - 4 tablespoons Vodka (use good quality)

Juice from 1/2 of a lemon

1 teaspoon of agar agar powder

Recipe:

Blend the honeydew melon in the blender. Strain out the pulp.

in a small bowl add the lemon juice and dissolve the agar agar powder in it for 5 min.

Add the agar agar / lemon mix to the liquid honeydew melon

Add the vodka

Put the liquid into a Tupperware container and freeze in your freezer, stirring vigorously every 20 minutes until the sorbet is done, 2 - 3 hours.

This is super fast and easy to make with only 2 ingredients.

Ingredients: 

2 Boxes of Instant Pudding Mix (Vanilla, Chocolate, etc)

8 cups of milk

Recipe:

Make the pudding as per the box instructions

Pour the pudding into a Tupperware container and place it in the freezer

Vigorously stir the pudding mix every 20 minutes until its frozen, about 2 - 3 hours