Fried Ice Cream

I am not into the sappy romances. Every time I watch a romantic comedy, and it comes to the cutesy ending scene, I get all squirmy and hide under a blanket until it’s over.

Really mature, I know.
 

For this reason, I’m not Nicholas Sparks’ biggest fan. I don’t have anything against him, but I have a hard time controlling my scoffs and eye-rolls during his books and movies when things get cheesy (which is often).

However, Sparks’ book Safe Haven (which is also a movie that came out this year) caught my attention because it mentions Fried Ice Cream. And I really wanted to make fried ice cream.

 

When the couple is talking about going to a local carnival (which in the movie is changed to a parade), the dashing male love interest, Alex, says to the mysterious, beautiful out-of-towner, Katie,
 

“‘And if you ask me nice, I’ll treat you to some deep-fried ice cream.’

“‘Fried ice cream? It sounds disgusting.’

“‘It’s actually tasty.’”

(I forgot to write down the page number before I went out of the country, but it’s toward the end of the book, before the climax.)

Yeah, that’s not a very big role that my little treat plays, but like I said, I really wanted to make fried ice cream.

“But fried ice cream?” you ask.  “Come on, that isn’t possible.”

Actually, it is. And it’s super easy. And delicious.

For the recipe, I just followed this video:

But if you want it written out, here’s the recipe. It looks way more complicated than it really is, I promise.

Fried Ice Cream

Ingredients:

1 quart Vanilla ice cream
3 cups Cornflakes
4 Egg whites (the video says 3 -- I needed more)
Oil for frying

Suggested toppings:
Honey
Whipped cream
Cinnamon
maraschino cherries

1. Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper. Place 8 scoops of ice cream on the waxed paper. Place in freezer and freeze for 1 hour.
2. Place cornflakes in a gallon ziplock bag and roll over them with a rolling pin until mostly crushed, but not powder. Pour into a medium bowl. Mix egg whites and water in a bowl until combined.
3. Remove ice cream balls from freezer. Moving quickly, pick up each ball of ice cream and roll it in the egg whites until completely covered. Then roll in the corn flakes. You may do this process twice if you want a crispier outer shell for your fried ice cream (recommended!). When all of the ice cream balls are coated, return to the freezer immediately. Freeze for 3 hours, to make sure the ice cream gets very hard. Otherwise it will turn into a puddle when it is fried!
4. When the 3 hours are up, heat about an inch of oil in a pan (the video says 4 inches -- you don't need that much!). You don’t want your oil to be crazy-hot. I waited until I could see the oil start to get swirly – not quite boiling, but definitely moving. Drop a drop or two of water in the oil – If it immediately bubbles, the oil is ready.
5. Only remove your ice cream from the freezer as-needed. I chose to fry the ice cream one at a time to be safe. Keep the rest in the freezer because, duh, it’s ice cream, and you don’t want it to melt.
6. Drop an ice cream ball into the oil and use a slotted spoon to turn it over in the oil so it cooks on all sides. The corn flakes will turn slightly darker brown and will feel crisper. Remove from the oil after 30 seconds.  Don’t go much longer, or it won’t be ice cream anymore!
7. Place ice cream in a bed of paper towels and blot a little to remove excess oil. Then place in serving dish. Top with a swirl of honey, a dollop of whipped cream, a couple shakes of cinnamon, and a cherry.  Then you are free to enjoy this hot-and-cold, sweet-and-salty treat!

Before freezing the second time

Frying!

It sounds complicated written out, but I promise it’s not. Just watch video like I did and you’ll be fine.

A cool thing about this treat is that once you freeze the ice cream with the egg whites and cornflakes on them, you can keep them in the freezer and pull out an ice cream ball to fry whenever you want! Perfect for serving at small parties when you want to show off!