Lemon-Lime Gelato--No ice cream maker required

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

Have you had enough of virtuous drinks and ugly vegetables?

Good. Because I think there's still just enough summer left to squeeze in more ice cream, don't you?

This treat was inspired by a grapefruit gelato posted on apronstrings. It was the best frozen treat I've had all summer (and I have had, um, a few). I figured it would work with other citrus as well. And boy, did it ever.

In addition to tasting amazing, this ice cream requires no ice cream maker and takes a whopping 7 minutes to whip up (although for purposes of full disclosure, I should mention, it takes 4-8 hours to freeze). Seriously, it's so good, so easy, and all natural. And if you want more virtue in your ice cream, hear this: Before we went away on our trip, we had 1/2 lemon, 1/2 lime, and some cream. So you see, I had to make this ice cream, because otherwise, those things would have gone bad. And we all know that's a sin, right? Amen and amen.

Lemon-Lime Gelato
adapted from apronstrings
Serves 6 (or 4 or 2 or maybe just you because, really, who's counting)
Prep time: 7 minutes
Cost: $2.15
(1/2 lemon: .20, 1/2 lime: .15, cream: 1.50, milk: .10, sugar: .20)

Note: This recipe requires regular whipping cream--as in, not heavy whipping cream. You're shooting for 25-30% milkfat, so it's not too icy and not too much like whipped cream. Here in Evansville we apparently like our creams on the heavy side. The only non-heavy cream I found was still one at 36% milkfat. So for this recipe, I combined 1 1/2 C heavy whipping cream with 1/2 C whole milk (though other milk would probably work too). For the grapefruit version, I used 1 3/4 C of the 36% milkfat cream and 1/4 C whole milk. Both worked well.

1/2 lemon
1/2 lime
1 C sugar
2 C non-heavy whipping cream (see note above)

Juice the lemon and lime. You should end up with about 1/4 C juice. Then zest the lemon and lime.

Pour cream, sugar, juices, and zests into into an 8x8 inch pan. Mix it up. I used a flat whisk and mixed it till the sugar was incorporated enough that it didn't sit in a big lump on the bottom. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and freeze for 8 hours. (If you'd like this ice cream faster than that--and who wouldn't--put it in a larger pan so it's spread thinner.

PRINTABLE RECIPE