Making Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream

Funfetti Cake Batter-flavored ice cream

My daughter planned to curbside-pick up whipping cream and strawberries for both our household and my son and daughter-in-law (2 packages strawberries and 2 containers whipping cream) just before Valentine's Day from Target. When she got the notification that they were out of stock of the strawberries, I told her to skip the whipping cream, too. Well, somehow, Target didn't get that last message in time. They included the whipping cream with my daughter's other personal purchases and charged her for it. She didn't realize this until she came home and unpacked her purchases. So, we were stuck with this whipping cream. I paid her for it and then was thinking, thinking, thinking how I could use it all before it spoiled. 

sprinkles from Target online, shipped to our address,
 less expensive than in store at Walmart or Fred Meyer

Enter the idea for ice cream for both daughters' birthday later this month. Ice cream is a great way to "save" extra heavy cream. The freezer essentially preserves the whipping cream, and the ice cream can be eaten any time in the coming months. Both daughters love cake batter ice cream as well as funfetti anything. I added a canister of rainbow sprinkles to my recent Target order (great price, btw, $2.99 for 9.3 oz) and made plans to do the ice cream this week.

Many recipes for cake batter ice cream call for cake mix. That's fine if you have cake mix on hand. I don't, so I searched around for ideas. I had a hunch that a mix of both almond and vanilla extract would be part of the recipe. As I was searching, I came across a reddit thread with a poster suggesting a mix of almond, vanilla, and butter extract. Guess what? I have all three of these. (The proportions suggested were 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon butter flavoring, and 1/2 cup of rainbow sprinkles stirred in to a standard ice cream base of 2 cups whipping cream, 1 cup whole milk, plus unspecified sugar.)

So, I made the ice cream, using the following measurements:

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup 2% milk (I didn't have whole milk)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon butter flavoring (Wilton)
• 1/2 cup rainbow jimmies

our ice cream maker has been one of our favorite wedding gifts
 from all those years ago

In a large mixing bowl with a spout, I stirred together the cream, milk, sugar, and flavorings (not the sprinkles just yet). I poured the mixture into my pre-chilled ice cream maker. I churned slowly for about 25 minutes. When the ice cream reached soft-serve firm, I churned the sprinkles into the mix. I had tested a sprinkle in a small amount of milk to see if it would bleed into liquid and it did. As a result, I decided to add the colored jimmies once the ice cream was no longer liquid. After churning the sprinkles in, I scooped the finished ice cream into a large plastic container with a lid and smoothed the top (so I can lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the top once it's frozen hard). The ice cream is now hardening in my deep freeze.

I will put a sheet of plastic wrap resting on
top of the ice cream after it's frozen.
This will help prevent ice crystals from forming.

What I thought

I need to preface, I have never chosen cake batter ice cream for myself before. This is a flavor my daughters often choose. I'm more a coffee or chocolate flavor gal when it comes to ice cream. Does it taste like commercial cake batter ice cream? My daughters will have to be the judge on that. And I won't know what my daughters think about this homemade Funfetti Cake Batter ice cream until their birthday later this month. However, if I were to make this again, I would increase the sugar by about 2 tablespoons and increase the almond extract to about 3/4 teaspoon. Otherwise, I thought this was pretty good. I wasn't sure about the butter flavoring, so I only added 1/2 teaspoon at first. After adding this amount and tasting, I added the other 1/2 teaspoon. Because taste can be such a personal thing, I would recommend adding the flavorings in parts and increasing to the suggested amount based on one's own taste.

I wash and reuse the plastic containers that
shortening (Crisco) comes in -- perfect size
for a batch of homemade ice cream.

I still have another pint of whipping cream to use this week. As soon as I can get the chilling chamber re-frozen, I'll be making a chocolate fudge brownie ice cream for my husband's birthday in April.

This is one of those times that my kids and husband are very glad that I waste not, so they can want not.

If you were to find yourself in a situation such as mine -- an extra pint of heavy cream about to expire -- how would you use it?

Another Weekend in the Frugal Life

one of my fun new snack containers for making homemade snack packs

I'm struggling to get through today. So, I thought I'd focus on some positives in my life, in particular, frugal triumphs.

• we ate all meals at home, all scratch-cooked
• we had a homemade pizza dinner on Friday while we watched a free movie on the Roku, Get Shorty (on Pluto TV- a free subscription service, has ads, but hey, I need a break from time to time to use the restroom or get a cup of tea)
• I used YouTube on the Roku while I exercised indoors. Anything I might normally watch on YouTube can be watched on the Roku. I was using music selections (50s doo-wop) to motivate me while I exercised.
• I washed a whole bunch of plastic bags to reuse. I hung these all on the clothes drying rack. I turn them inside out about a day after hanging, then allow to continue drying.
• We also used the clothes drying racks to hang some laundry this weekend.
• I used my cute little snack containers that my daughter gave to me over the weekend, filling them with various goodies and mini cut veggies. I could also eat my snacks off of a plate. But these are more fun.
• I paid bills online and over the phone (the one bill that doesn't have an option to pay online). I saved the cost of several stamps. However, I don't think I recouped the cost of internet access.
• We're in a rainy pattern right now. So I took advantage of the indoor time to organize and inventory the pantry. I mentally set aside a couple of items for our Easter dinner and placed an order to be shipped for basics that I don't want to run out of (raisins, flour, sugar, peanut butter, brown rice, canned tomato paste, non-stock baking spray, and rainbow sprinkles to make funfetti desserts).
• I also inventoried one of the freezers, and I found a whole chicken bought in early 2020. I pulled it out to thaw and oven-roasted it on Monday for our dinner. Everyone loved having a Thanksgiving-like dinner on a regular weekday evening.
• I've been in a funk lately, so I read a couple of online articles (instead of buying books or magazines), which resulted in me using my motivational journal to work out my internal dialog. The "motivational journal" is my 79-cent spiral notebook bought in the school supply section of Target. I knew what I'd be using this notebook for, so I chose a color that I like. It's pink. It's been a bargain. 79 cents to dialog with myself or $$$ for therapy. Easy choice for me.

Where we messed up. 2 family members had ex's to pick-up one day, but they didn't coordinate. So, gas was used to go to the pharmacy and back twice in the same day. Wah wah.

So that was my weekend. What frugal triumphs have you had recently?