FREE mini icecream in a restaurant

Make real ice cream in any diner style restaurant!

This instructable is good for three situations:
1. Very late nights at Denny's, IHOP, or anyplace with half-n-half in little UHT plastic cups.
2. Entertaining kids 'bout 'old tymee heirloom' technology using salt
3. or When you really, really, want to do an instructable during your lunch break, but forget the CAD/CAM laser cutter back at the shop.

Of course, since you are buying a meal in the restaurant for this instructable, it's not really free. But the complimentary ingredients are sitting in front of you, waiting to be transformed... into...
FREE ICE CREAM!!&%!!!
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UPDATE:
Thanks for the great comments!

Some linked comments say free mini ice cream is messy... or loud... or makes extra work for restaurant employees. Not true! A 14 ml mini cup is only one tablespoon. A half glass of melted ice water is the same as any other.

For every free mini ice cream you make, you will make a new friend.

Step 1 Go out to eat at any restaurant with the word "waffle".

Go out to eat at any restaurant with the word "waffle" or "pancake" in their name, and/or serving bacon strips in the morning. Many diners, sit-down places at truck stops, and some fast food places. Home will work, too, if you have some of the mini half-n-half cups.

Comments

[kenbob]

Hilarious! I love it!

[banlui]

oh my!! lol i have never left a comment before. but this just deserves one such an amazing and simple idea. great post sir great post! lol

[eulaliaaaa!]

Awesome!

[Flapjack9000]

Now THAT. Is what I call ingenuity. xD Nice

[NicOmbra]

 This is cool. Ha, Ha! Ignore the pun if you didn't get it. Anyway, you can make lemonade by asking for more more lemons and pourin' in some splenda.

[hawkfrost64]

 no!! don't do that!! just order the LEMONADE!!! it doesn't even taste like lemonade if you "make your own"!! its kinda different with the ice cream, but lemonade? NO!!  MY BROTHER used to work at p.f. changs. people did that all the time. the restaurant owners HATE THAT!! its not free for them!! they ownly buy a few lemons!!

[teh darkcloud]

Nice! I need to do this the next time my friends and I are on a midnight Denny's trip. :p

[mdog93]

would it work with fresh milk?

[a_traceur]

Chocolate milk is good too!

[maxstevenson]

I think it probably would work with milk, but I think half-n-half is best. I haven't seen mini cups with milk, but I have seen kid's "juice box" sized UHT with milk. Hmmm... that's maybe a good idea (but it wouldn't be mini anymore). You asked about "fresh" milk, I don't see how that would work, as it would mix with the salt water, but who knows? I think there is an instructable about making ice cream/ice milk in ziploc plastic sandwich bags. Thanks for your comment!

[mdog93]

yh ok, but if you could seal it in an air tight container would the actually chemistry of it work or is there some reason y it only works with half n half. what is half n half btw? mdog

[maxstevenson]

Hi mdog, Half n half is half cream, half milk. Its when you don't want to use 100% cream, cream is the fat part from whole milk, straight out of the cow. I think you should try it with milk and see if it works. I haven't tried it, so I don't know. Let me know if it works or not in the comments here, or if you can take pictures of it, you can make your own instructable about it!

[mdog93]

I thought it might be half milk half cream, duno if u can find that much in the UK. mostly its the uht milk then you sumtime get cream but quite often you see what they call creamer for coffee but it isn't real cream so anyway i'll try n give it a go. cheers Mdog

[a_traceur]

I tried it with real milk (2%) and it worked like a charm! It was awesome!

[kelli_enkeli]

WOW! That will totally impress my friends next time we hit the diner at 2am!

[a_traceur]

Everything is either impressive or funny at 2 am!

[SWV1787]

Nice Idea it reminds me a a list of things you could make out of MRE contents... I think this is just the thing to do when I take my younger cousins out to eat.

[thematthatter]

MREs dont include UHT half/half. They come with fortified dairy milkshake though, Yum (sarcasm)

[cantthinkof bettername]

My dad made Desert from MREs. They have powdered creamer and sometimes cranberries. It tastes pretty good.

[thematthatter]

They used to have dried cherries, i dont know if the new menus have them, but they were good, even if they were 6 years old at the time.

[cantthinkof bettername]

MREs are expensive.

[thematthatter]

They are only 8 dollars a piece. They also make something called TOTM, (tailored operational training meals) that are only 4 bucks a piece. Its the same as an MRE except it uses commercial packaging to make it cheaper.

[cantthinkof bettername]

I consider $8 for a meal to be expensive. I think a big part of the price is the chemicals that make heat. I do think that it could be a good idea to stash a few for when power is out or something.

[thematthatter]

Its the packaging that makes it expensive. MREs are designed to survive chemical, nuclear attacks, survive drops from air planes and last 3 years. The TOTM has the almost all the same stuff, including the Flameless ration heater and its only 4 bucks.

[cantthinkof bettername]

They should make the packages reusable then.

[robotguy4]

Or maybe we should start figuring out a way to recycle the packages...

"MREs are designed to survive chemical, nuclear attacks, survive drops from air planes and last 3 years."
Sounds like we need to make a hazmat suit out of MRE packages à la plastic bag fusing...

Or a really neat vest. That works too...

[cantthinkof bettername]

Great idea. If you make one tell me how it turns out.

[robotguy4]

But I already have a vest like the one shown... A lot of pockets, freakin' durable, quite comfortable...

AND ITS ORANGE! =D

What else do I need in a vest?

[Sylkhr]

I agree, and they'd save the Earth too!!!!

[dunnos]

we don't really have that kind of restaurants in holland, but if my parents permit it i wil try it in america this vacation. nice ible!

[steed1172]

now i have something fun to do at a restaurant/diner... awesome!!

[ajhodges]

My friend Nate and I did it in an IHOP lol

[{tauney}]

Bahahahahaha! I used to spend my time in diners making butter out of the 18% creamers...Never again! Ice cream, straight-up, from here on out.

[IgnorantZebra]

Tried this at home by bringing the creamer cup home and doing it in a souvenir cup. Did not shake it long enough because there was only a little ice cream in it. The sugar made it taste very good. Thanks for the Instructable

[maxstevenson]

You actually don't have to shake it, that's just for fun.

[Nirgal38]

Actually, shaking is a part of making ice cream. You need some means of breaking up large ice crystals that form in the milk (which is mostly water). If you don't use a dasher or shake it, you wind up with a blend of butter fat and ice crystals which is every bit as appetizing as it sounds. That's why ice cream freezers have that large paddle in the middle and you spend so much time cranking them.

[mdog93]

Ohhhhhh wait i just thought of something, is half n half the same as semi-skimmed milk?

[kelseymh]

No, it's the opposite.

[mdog93]

what skimmed?

[xerxesx20]

Skimmed milk is allowed to seperate and the fat is "skimmed" (hence the name) off the surface, this all happens prior to homogenization -- this is when milk is forced through a fantastically small hole at fantastically high pressure which, in turn diperses the minute amount of remaining fat amongst the milk. I think that's right anyways, i'm no dairy worker. Perhaps somebody will let me know it that is correct at some point.