In Celebration of the United States’ National Ice Cream Day (July 19th), which quite obviously should be called the National Ice Cream Event (both so we can nickname it NICE, and so it won’t be limited to just one day per year), I made ice cream.

Oatmeal Raisin Ice Cream (ORIC), to be exact.

And here’s the epic journey: Because I buy cookbooks and rarely (if ever) cook from them, I decided to use NICE as my motivation, and selected a recipe from here:

This is a cookbook by state from Lindsay at Scoop Adventures, and since I’ve visited the Creole Creamery while in New Orleans Louisiana, I picked that recipe

The recipe said I needed a local New Orleans molasses brand called Steens, so I ordered that from Amazon. But I also needed oatmeal raisin cookies, so on to cookbook and recipe number two:

Are you still with me? After planning, shopping (both online for molasses AND locally for groceries), baking… Only three more steps / days to go!

Next came cooking the ice cream base, then cooling it overnight. Next day, mix it in the ice cream machine, then add the toppings, then freeze THAT overnight.

And finally, scoop and add more cookies…