I scream, you scream, we all scream Hooray for Merry! I admit I’m totally like a kid in an ice-cream shop today because I’m sooooo excited to finally share Merry Mag Summer with you. I’ve been teasing you with summer cocktails and florals but now you can see it all. All 100 pages absolutely FULL of awesome handmade inspiration from 20 talented and creative bloggers.

After such an amazing response to our holiday issue of Merry (thank you! thank you! thank you!) we decided to keep the handmade love going and come out with an even MORE inspirational and creative issue. Here’s just a little taste of the cheerful handmade eye candy you’ll find in Merry Summer. It includes home decor, outdoor living, DIY projects, entertaining ideas, food & drink recipes, and some great summer style inspiration & more!

The second Merry Summer was confirmed I knew I wanted to do a big ice-cream story. After trying this no-churn pistachio ice-cream recipe I was hooked and wanted to make a tonne of flavors…and so that’s what I did. Making and eating the ice-cream was fun. Styling and photographing it was a whole other ball game. Even with all my years of experience on professional photo sets I’ve never been so freak’n stressed out. Working with melting ice-cream on a summer day is cray cray. But thankfully I had Andrea there to take the photos and in the end I think we totally pulled it off. We celebrated by eating the props, obviously.

Is there anything that says summer more than a bowl or cone of ice-cream? The more flavors, the better. If you’re an ice-cream-o-holic this will be the best news you’ll ever hear. You don’t need a machine to make ice-cream at home. In fact you can make it in minutes with only two ingredients plus your favorite flavor.

So here’s the deal, each recipe starts with the exact same 2 ingredient base then you just add different flavor elements. The possibilities are truly endless.

NO CHURN HOMEMADE ICE-CREAM RECIPE BASE:
• 14 oz. sweetened condensed milk (note, this is more than an avg. size can)
• 2 cups of 35% whipping cream
• flavor of your choice (see below)

So for each recipe below I started by combining my flavor in one bowl with the condensed milk then whipping the cream to stiff peaks in another bowl and then folding one into the other. Pour into freezer safe container and leave a minimum of 6 hours but preferably overnight. Because I did so many at once I could really tell how the ingredients effected the process overall. For some recipes you’re just adding some chocolate & extract and others you’re adding significant more liquid. In the end they all turned out and were delicious but they did freeze at different speeds and some of them stayed a little softer and others needed about 15 min on the counter before serving. Start with the above base (*except coconut) and then follow the below recipes for each flavor.

BANANA CHOCOLATE CARAMEL
• base recipe
• 2 very ripe bananas
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 c. caramel or salted caramel sauce (to taste)
• 1/2 c. chocolate sauce

If you’re making your own caramel, do that first and set aside. Mash up bananas well and combine with condensed milk and vanilla. Fold into whip cream mixture. Pour a few thin layers of the ice-cream base with swirls of chocolate and caramel between each one.

STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE SWIRL
• base recipe
• 8 oz. pack of softened cream cheese
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups of fresh or frozen berries
• juice & zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 c. sugar
• graham crackers for garnish

First make your berry swirl by combining the berries, lemon juice & zest and sugar in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil then turn to low heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or until all the sugar disolves and berries break down. Then combine the cream cheese and vanilla to the condensed milk and combine with whip cream. Pour 1 layer at a time putting some strawberry mixture between and swirling it.

MINT CHOCOLATE CHUNK
• base recipe
• 1-2 tsp. of mint extract  (to taste)
• 1 cup chocolate chunks or chips

Combine the extract and chocolate with condensed milk then fold into whip cream. Do a taste test after you combine with whip cream and add more mint flavor if necessary.

TOASTED COCONUT DREAM
• base recipe (substitute 1 c. coconut cream for regular cream)
• 1 cup toasted shredded coconut
• 1-2 tsp. coconut extract

This one is the only one here where the base changes slightly. Substitute 1 cup of coconut cream (not milk) for 1 cup of the regular cream and whip as normal. Combine toasted coconut, extract and condensed milk and fold into whip cream mixture. Add more coconut flavor if you want after mixing with whip cream.

VERY BERRY LIME TREAT
• base recipe
• 1 cup of mixed berry puree
• zest of 1 or 2 limes (to taste)

Combine all your berries in a blender to make puree then combine with lime zest into condensed milk and fold into whip cream.

LEMON CURD SWIRL
• base recipe
• 1 cup of lemon curd (or to taste)

Pour 1/2 or 1/3 (depending how many layers of ‘swirl’ you want) of your base ice-cream into your freezer dish then add some lemon curd and swirl around. Add the other layer(s) doing the same thing in between.

GINGER MANGO REFRESHER
• base recipe
• 1 cup of mango puree (buy or just blend ripe mangos)
• 2 tsp. fresh grated ginger (more or less to taste)

Combine mango puree and ginger with condensed milk then fold in with whip cream.

OREO COOKIES & CREAM
• base recipe
• 1 cup of broken oreo cookies 

For this one combine the whip cream & condensed milk then add the cookies right at the end. You can substitute any cookie you like.

Are you drooling yet?!

You’ll be making ice cream faster than you can eat it with these delicious no-churn recipes. Check out Merry for even more delish summer bites.