I’ve discovered the ultimate kitchen hack for making ice cream – my grand mother’s peppermint stick ice cream recipe from 60 years ago! Yes, our grand parents were hackers but we won’t tell them.

The original recipe was simple enough. The base was:

• 1 [small] can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup cold water

My hacked update is:

• 1 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk
• 2 cups whole milk

That’s right, just two ingredients. I put all of this in a 1 quart mason jar along with 2 tablespoons of instant coffee. Shake and toss in the freezer to chill (this may not be strictly necessary).

Pour the contents into an ice cream maker (the kind with the chilled cylinder work fine) and turn on the machine.

Now, if your kitchen happens to have xanthan gum handy – all good hacker kitchens should – slowly add *at most* 1/4 teaspoon while the mixer is running.

Depending on how cold the liquid is to start, you will have a smooth, decadent soft serve coffee ice cream in 15 to 30 minutes. Transfer to a plastic container and toss in the freezer to harden further.

This will go great with my cake-in-a-cup