I scream for Snow Cream
Watching the snow fall this morning I was reminded about a recipe that I learned to make when I was about six years old… Snow Cream. As a child, I was amazed how easy and fun it was to make dessert out of snow. I even began to believe that I could end world hunger with all of the snow that fell in my small Ontario town.
Friends of the family came to visit us from the South late one fall and as luck would have it we had an early snowstorm. Seizing the moment; one of our guests ventured outside with some bowls and collected as much snow as possible and quickly went to work stirring together some milk, sugar and vanilla. Then handful after handful I gradually added the snow while we took turns stirring the mixture. With short work we had created a couple of liters of Snow Cream that we drizzled with maple syrup.
Most people who have regular snowfalls and accumulations are the ones who have never heard of snow cream. This simple dessert seems to be more widely celebrated in the deep south of the United States a place not known for snow. It was not long ago that electricity was not a household item, making chest freezers more rare than the snow needed to make this recipe. So when it did snow in the south, this was an easy way to celebrate and make do with what you have.
The great thing about making snow cream is that it doesn’t require too many ingredients and those that it does can be found here locally. Naturally my milk and cream came from The Kawartha Dairy Company and my maple syrup came from Sugarvalley Farm who do farm gate sales in Indian River
The only advice that I give for the following recipe is to make sure the snow is clean. This goes beyond all the yellow snow jokes as you should only use fresh fallen snow, and be aware that it takes at least one to two hours for a fresh snowfall to clean the pollutants from the air, so use only snow that has fallen after that first cleansing snow.
View from the office this morning!
Snow Cream
1/2 cup 35% heavy cream
½ cup 2% milk
1-teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup Kawartha Maple Syrup
6-8 litres of fresh fallen snow
Prepare an ice bath by filling an extra large mixing bowl with ice or snow half way. Set a slightly smaller bowl into the ice bath. Better yet, take your mixing bowl outside and set it in the snow. Combine the cream, milk, sugar, and in bowl and whisk together. Continue stirring while adding snow to the cream based mixture 1-2 cups at a time. The amount of snow needed will vary depending on the size of the snow crystals and the temperature of the snow. Stir in enough snow to make the cream mixture start to resemble ice cream in consistency. Garnish with crushed candy canes. Serve and eat immediately as Snow Cream is not to be stored for any period of time.
Riesling Snow Cream
1 cup 35% heavy cream
3 Tbsp. Sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup of Inniskillin Riesling Ice Wine
6-8 liter’s of snow
Prepare an ice bath by filling an extra large bowl with ice half way. Set a slightly smaller bowl into the ice bath. Better yet, take your mixing bowl outside and set it in the snow. Combine the cream, sugar, and ice wine in bowl and whisk together. Continue stirring while adding snow to ice wine mixture 1-2 cups at a time. Stir in enough snow to make snow cream to an ice cream consistency. Serve and consume immediately.
Note: ALWAYS make sure the snow is clean. This goes beyond all those yellow snow jokes. Always use fresh fallen snow, but be aware that it takes at least one to two hours for a fresh snowfall to clean the pollutants from the air, therefore use only snow that has fallen after that first cleansing snow.
Out in the Cold
If you have had to spent extended periods of time out of doors the past few days chances are that your face and any other exposed areas of skin is probably feeling a bit sore and tender. This is because the extreme cold has damaged your skin by dehydrating it and causing it to oxidize. More specifically your exposed skin is being subjected to the sublimation process which is when we see the outer surface of our skin begin to freeze ever so slightly and the water molecules go directly from their solid state or ice to their gaseous state as a vapour without ever being in its liquid state. Simply put we are all feeling a little freezer burnt!
If you have ever found a forgotten tidbit of food in the freezer which was wrapped in haste and repeatedly tossed out of the way every time you went rooting through your freezer you may discover when you finally un-wrapped it that a portion of its surface may have been covered in ice crystals. This is the extreme effects of sublimation on foods that have been improperly frozen which when thawed leaves our food looking dry and shrivelled or somewhat burnt.
freezer brrrrrrrn
Food affected by freezer burn does not pose a threat to food safety or our health, it is will simply have some dry patches or have changed colour as the lack of moisture can cause reactions in pigmentation. By keeping the temperature of your freezer at a constant temperature of -18 °c or colder it will not only keep your frozen food safe it will lessen the effects of freezer burn. Foods located in an area of your freezer that are frequently exposed to temperature fluctuations like those near the door are at a greater risk of experiencing sublimation as well manual defrost freezers are better at preventing freezer burn than the self-defrosting freezers for the same reason..
When we venture outside in cold weather we tend to wrap ourselves up thoroughly and apply a protective layer of lotion on our skin to protect it which we can also do with our food. Properly wrapping our food is the first step in protecting it in the freezer. Vacuum packing your food with sealant machines are a popular method to use, while some choose to use self-sealing plastic bags which allow you to hug and squeeze the excess air out of the bag. Although plastic barriers are extremely effective at protecting food when they fail they fail miserably as the slightest puncture in the protective plastic allows the entire piece of food to be exposed to the effects of cold air. Traditional butcher paper is better for wrapping medium to larger pieces of food because it can effectively create a barrier between foods and the air, when they become punctured only the food at the puncture site will be at risk of developing freezer burn and can easily be trimmed off.
You can also slow the effects of freezer burn on your food by simply placing open, plastic containers partially filled with water in your freezer in addition to those used to make ice cubes to help maintain humidity.
Looking for a new freezer? Contact me at thechef@chefbrianhenry.com as we now have freezers available designed exclusively for the All-Natural Food Council of North America to properly preserve healthy, all-natural foods!
Humans have been freezing food for its preservation for centuries as it slows decomposition of foods while protecting them from bacteria and pathogens. Clarence Birdseye II made numerous fur trapping expeditions into Labrador where he learned about ice fishing and witnessed the effects of flash freezing food in the sub-zero climate of the region. Birdseye watched how observed people purposely freezing their food for long term storage which inspired him to invent the necessary equipment required to create an endless line of frozen foods and prepared meals.
It has been proven that freezing foods does not impair their nutritional values; these values are lowered by the cooking methods and cooling processes that foods endure prior to and after being frozen similar to fresh foods. It has also been proven that foods frozen for 3, 6 and 12 month intervals also showed that the duration of time food spent in the freezer did not change their nutritional content.
Looking for a new freezer?
Contact me at thechef@chefbrianhenry.com as we now have freezers available designed exclusively
for the All-Natural Food Council of North America to properly preserve healthy, all-natural foods!
Tags: Caterer Kawartha, Caterer Kawartha`s, Caterer Lakefield, Caterer Peterborough, catering Canada, Chef, Chef Algonquin Park, Chef Apsley, Chef Bancroft, Chef Bobcaygeon, Chef Brian Henry, chef Canada, Chef Cottage Country, Chef Haliburton, Chef Hastings, Chef Kawartha, Chef Muskoka, Chef North Kawartha, Chef Northumberland, Chef Ontario, Chef Peterborough, consultant, cottage caterer, cottage country catering, culinary educator, emergency food service, Food, Food truck, freezer sales, Ghost Chef, ice wine, Kawartha Culinary School, mobile kitchen, Ontario Catering, Personal Chef, Private chef, recipes. same sex catering, restaurant consultant, Restaurant consulting, snow cream
