Homemade Snow Ice Cream - Only Three Ingredients!

It's Valentines Day! Today the kids and I will be doing some fun activities and the first includes making ice cream out of just three ingredients, including snow from our front yard! Now, make sure you don't use yellow snow, but check out how simple it is to make this delicious treat.

Homemade Snow Ice Cream

I recently heard about this simple treat from a local mom and I knew we had to try it! This ice cream is made from just three ingredients and doesn't require an ice cream maker or any special tools. In the past three weeks we've gotten over a foot of snow. Since the temps have been so cold we have plenty of untouched, fresh snow in our yard! When the kids found out we could make ice cream from scratch, they were SO excited! Here's what you'll need to make homemade snow ice cream:

• 10 cups of fresh snow
• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

That's it! After grabbing ten cups of fresh snow from your yard (we ended up using a bit more to get a thicker consistency), mix an entire can of sweetened condensed milk in.

Kids may need some help stirring at this point! We used room temperature sweetened condensed milk, but I got a recommendation to refrigerate it so it melts the snow less. While I think that's a good recommendation, it will also make the mixture even harder to stir.

Add a teaspoon of vanilla and mix that in as well. If you'd like to add flavored coffee creamer or chocolate sauce, you could add that too! Our kids' favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla, so we didn't add other flavorings. Dad had to help stir at this point, while the kids sneaked a taste! (I'm pretty sure Lincoln was sneaking the whole time!)

Adding Toppings to Our Snow Ice Cream

After you've mixed the ingredients in, you can add little sprinkles or decorations if you want! I have some pink sprinkles and heart sprinkles on hand, so we used those! I'm fairly sure Lincoln poured half of the pink sprinkles in his bowl before I had a chance to help him! Harper was a bit more conservative, but not much.

The kids' ice cream was melting fast. I think it was partly from the room temperature sweetened condensed milk, and partly from how warm our house is! When it came time to get some ice cream for the adults, we grabbed a bit more snow from outside and added it to the mixture. The kids absolutely LOVE the taste of the ice cream and they were so proud that they'd created it!

I was surprised that after we added a bit more snow, the consistency was just like regular ice cream. It even tasted like store bought ice cream right out of the carton! I remember making homemade ice cream as a kid but it was so much work and took a long time, even with an ice cream maker. This is a great option if you live somewhere with tons of snow (like Minnesota!) and you have young kids who want to help out in the kitchen. I'm so excited to make this an annual tradition!

Have you ever made homemade ice cream?
Have you tried making it with snow?
If you do, let me know in the comments; I'd love to hear what you think!