Back in 1996, while taking a brief sojourn in the middle of my university academic career, I worked for a while as a kitchen porter (read: guy in the kitchen who does all the shit no one else wants to do) at a gourmet restaurant/hotel in Scotland. (Do not insert jokes about Scottish cuisine here.) Anyhow, I recall them making some lovely ice creams, like Prune & Armanac, some fruit with Drambuie, etc. However, they never used an ice cream maker. Every ice cream web site I’ve been to instructs you to use an ice cream maker. Has anyone made ice cream without one, and what’s the trick? I do remember that you have to let it sit for a few minutes at room temperature for the texture to be right, but besides that, my mind’s a blank. Was there continuous stirring of the mixture involved once it hits the freezer? Argh!! Gourmets of the world, I beseech you!
I think I remember some cooking show where they put a smaller bowl into a larger bowl (with ice and salt in the larger bowl), then they added the ice cream mixture and kept stirring a lot.
Or you can use two clean coffee cans, one big, one little. with ice and salt in the gap and roll it back and forth. Or yeah, and make sure the lid on the inner can is really, really secure (Duct tape!!)
But if you don’t remember any agitation and just putting it in the freezer…can’t help you there.
Two words…
Liquid Nitrogen. 
I don’t recall salt being used. I’ve a feeling that they may have whipped it from time to time during the freezing process, but there certainly wasn’t anything involving multiple vessels and/or salt. Like I said, if you ate the ice cream right out of the freezer, the texture was not quite right. You had to let it sit for about 5 or 10 minutes. Once it did, it tasted as heavenly as any ice cream I’ve ever had. I’m also asking this, because I wonder if there’s any changes you have to make in the recipe to make ice cream in this manner. I swear I have this written down in a notebook somewhere, but that’s 1000s of miles away right now, and it may have drowned in a cellar flooding…
I found this out re: the salt
I often make frozen yoghurt, which is equally delicious and much better for you. All you do is mix together Greek yoghurt (or other natural yoghurt, but Greek is best), some runny honey, a dash of vanilla essence, some single cream - about 1:4 cream to yoghurt - and the fruit of your choice. Stick in any sort of tub in the freezer, take out every half hour or so to stir, for three hours, then freeze without stirring for one more hour. Really yummy.
You know, now that you mention it, I remember my mother making “ice cream” when I was a kid simply by pouring some mixture into an empty tray and sticking it in the freezer for a while. I don’t remember her ever stirring it or anything and it did have a rather “different” texture.
I’ll ask next time I talk to home.
I did a search on the Cooking Light message board, because they’re always talking ice cream - with machines, of course.
I found this, which is a little tongue in cheek, but possible:
I then found a link to this site, which has recipes. There’s an FAQ about making ice cream without a machine:
http://www.dsuper.net/~zaz/icecream/frame.html
I think the second link addresses your question nicely - basically you use a cake pan, and you’ll need to mix it up every once in a while.
Thanks scout and Queen Al! That sounds more-or-less like the process I’ve seen described, minus the food processing bit. I’ll give it a shot and see how it works. I guess the recipe doesn’t really need to be altered or anything. The frozen yogurt sounds particularly yummy. Thanks all!