Cool Down This Summer By Turning Your Favorite Soda Into A 2-Ingredient Ice Cream

DIY ice cream is one of those nostalgic summertime experiences that seems to be cemented in our collective unconscious whether or not we've actually made it. While the idea of sitting on the porch cranking an ice cream churn seems to belong to the distant past, homemade ice cream isn't out of reach for the modern cook. If you have the time and equipment, you may wish to try different recipes, making wonderful ice creams such as our gift-worthy almond joy ice cream or roasted strawberry crème fraîche ice cream. (Even without an ice cream maker, you can easily whip up a batch of no-churn ice cream.) That being said, one of the simplest ice creams we know starts with just two ingredients: a bottle of soda and a can of sweetened condensed milk.

One recipe for soda ice cream involves combining ½ gallon of soda with two 14-ounce cans of condensed milk. If you don't mind adding a third ingredient, you can also make it with 4 cups of soda, one can of condensed milk, and 1 cup of whole milk. If you have an ice cream maker, pour the chilled mixture into it and follow the appliance's directions. For a churn-free version, spread the ice cream mixture in a large pan and freeze it for an hour, then beat it until it's smooth before freezing it again. The final product may not be as creamy as store-bought ice cream — one person online said it had more of a snow-like texture — but it's still incredibly enjoyable to eat.

Aside from it being a fun and relatively budget-friendly experience (especially if you use bargain-basement soda), the best thing about making ice cream out of soda is that you get to play around with nonstandard ice cream flavors such as cola, Mountain Dew, or Dr. Pepper. Fruit-flavored soda, while delicious, may not lead to anything quite so unique since strawberry ice cream and orange sherbet are pretty common. That being said, there is one notable exception: grape. Grape is a popular soda flavor that's seldom used for ice cream, possibly because the fruit itself is so watery that it generally works better in popsicles and water ices than for any kind of cream-based concoction. Grape soda, however, has a consistency identical to that of any other soda, so there's no reason it wouldn't work in this two-ingredient ice cream recipe.

If you're feeling experimental, you could even try making this recipe using hard soda or beer. The freezing point of either, assuming an ABV of 5%, is around 27 degrees Fahrenheit, which is just a few degrees lower than the 30 degrees Fahrenheit most sodas freeze at. (Diet soda being the exception, since it freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.) Even if this lower freezing point does result in slushy ice cream, all is not lost since you'll still have a tasty, boozy milkshake.