homemade slush

I'm sorry to bring this to you on such a cold and dreary day, but I was experimenting with this last week and then things started getting cooler and then I tried to hold out for a warmer day, but that warmer day didn't come, and then I thought, oh heck. I'm Canadian. It's not weird that I'm trying to make frozen things in September and, more importantly, this frozen thing -- this idea -- doesn't work anyway.

It doesn't. Not even with the tiniest glimmer of hope or possibility. The pop freezes, oh yes, it does. You end up with something that looks like slush.

But this, my friends, is not slush. It's some sort of weird combination of slush and ice cube. It's chunky like an ice cube but softer and meltier.

On my first attempt, I couldn't stand the sound that was coming from the rotating blade. You see, the pop tended to freeze on to the bottom and sides of my ice cream maker instead of freezing together like ice cream would. So eventually, there was a nice wall of frozen pop built up around the bowl and the mixing blade was scraping around it. When I lifted the blade out to see what was going on, I realized the frozen pop wall was also on the bottom of the bowl, and because of that, I couldn't get the blade back in right, so the mixer wouldn't mix anymore.

So I thought I'd leave my ice cream maker bowl on the counter for a while, regroup, and try again. This time, I tried to dump the pop in without getting it on the sides and I left it on longer, undisturbed, and suffered through the sounds.

I left it for as long as it takes to empty my (overflowing) dish drainer and organize my storage container cupboard (which was at the point where my containers were starting to tumble out every time I opened the door). But the scraping sound was unbearable. It's about the only time I've thought it would be possible to break my ice cream machine. I have the KitchenAid bowl and there has never been a point where I thought breaking any part of it would be possible. That scraping sound? Oy, I thought the mixing blade was going to snap in half. I stood in front of it, staring, hand-wringing, and decided that no amount of slush would be worth breaking my ice cream maker for, so I finally shut it off.

And this is all I got. I drank down some of the liquid so it would be easier to see the frozen bits, but that's the entire result from two cups of root beer. That's a whole lot less glamourous than I thought this idea would be.

I have these disasters so you don't have to (even though you probably wouldn't want to anyway, and you're probably dreaming of hot chocolate and gingersnaps right now instead of slushies and popsicles like I am).