July is National Ice Cream Month

Gelato, with two tower-shaped biscuits

Did you know that July is National Ice Cream Month? Me, neither, but it is.

Apparently, President Reagan designated it as such in 1984. While he isn't at the top of my list of presidents, kudos for that move. July is nearing an end, but summer is still here, and every month feels like ice cream month when it's hot.

There's ice cream, and then there's ice cream, and by that I mean Italian gelato, that creamy, dense concoction that has astounded not only Italians, but people the world over for over 100 years.

The idea of freezing fruits for hot weather consumption goes back roughly 4,000 years, probably to China. It would be a few centuries before the Italians started adding milk or cream to the mixtures to produce what we know today as ice cream or gelato.

Gelato, with a fresh waffle biscuit.

You may have a Gelateria near you where you can buy a dish of this frozen ambrosia, or you can make it at home in just a couple of hours. If you have an ice cream maker, the hardest part is done for you, but if you're only going to make it once or twice a summer and don't want to buy an ice cream maker, you can still do it at home. After all, we've been making frozen desserts much longer than machines have been around. Here are a few recipes that you can play with.

Lemon Gelato - from eHow.com

•  6 lemons
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 6 egg yolks
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 2/3 cup half and half
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Whisk
• Mixing bowl
• Saucepan

• Begin by getting about 3/4 cup of zest from the lemons. This can be done with a grater, or by removing the peel with a vegetable peeler and mincing in a food processor.
• Whisk together 6 egg yolks, 1 and 1/3 cups of heavy cream and 1/8 teaspoon of salt in a mixing bowl until well mixed.
• Mix together 2 and 2/3 cups of half-and-half, lemon zest and 1/8 teaspoon of salt in a small saucepan. Set the saucepan on a burner set to medium-low heat. Bring to a simmer, stirring continually until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat.
• Slowly whisk the egg yolk mixture into the hot half-and-half mixture. Return the pan to the hot burner and cook over medium-low heat until the mixture thickens enough to coat a spoon. This takes about 5 minutes.
• Pour the hot mixture into a bowl and stir in 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature to cool. The plastic wrap should prevent a film from developing on the top of the mixture. This may take several hours. The mixture may be refrigerated for up to 48 hours, or you can move to the next step right away.
• Squeeze lemons until you have 3/4 cup lemon juice. Stir the lemon juice into the cooled mixture. Freeze the mixture. This process makes about a quart and a half of lemon gelato.

CafeMia in North Carolina

Don't have an ice cream maker? No problem. All you're trying to do is prevent large ice crystals from forming in the gelato, and a machine does this for you. To do it by hand, Put a deep baking dish, or bowl made of plastic, stainless steel or something durable in the freezer, and pour your mixture into it.After forty-five minutes, open the door and check it. As it starts to freeze near the edges, remove it from the freezer and stir it vigorously with a spatula or whisk. Really beat it up and break up any frozen sections. Return to freezer.

Continue to check the mixture every 30 minutes, stirring vigorously as it's freezing. If you have one, you can use a hand-held mixer for best results, or use a stick-blender or hand-held mixer. But since we're going low-tech here, you can also use just a spatula or a sturdy whisk along with some modest physical effort. Keep checking periodically and stirring while it freezes (by hand or with the electric mixer) until the ice cream is frozen. It will likely take 2-3 hours to be ready.

If you want to make one or two small servings, check out this method for small batch gelato or ice cream at Scitoys.com.