America loves its pickup trucks. They account for an estimated 17 percent of vehicles on the road across the country, and almost two million full-size trucks were sold in America last year alone. I’m sure many of these trucks are being put to use carrying things like lumber, camping kit, or a load of water, and definitely not roaming the streets with empty beds. Right?
Well whether your bed is empty or packed with hedge trimmings, I’m here to tell you that you’re using your pickup truck wrong. Instead of using it to haul stuff around, you should instead turn it into the kind of kitchen appliance that we all need: an ice cream maker.
The idea was brought to my attention on TikTok, where one savvy young content creator set to work with a pickup truck, ratchet straps, a cooler, and an empty paint can.
Blake Kinsman starts by strapping the cooler to one of their truck’s massive wheels. They then take a gleaming new paint can and throw in egg yolks, sugar, milk, cream, and smashed-up cookies. For anyone not in the know, that’s the basic recipe for a pretty simple (but delicious) ice cream.
The paint can gets sealed, then thrown into the cooler with a bunch of ice, and a good scoop of salt. With all that strapped to a wheel, the truck sets off on a journey around town.
Now, while the truck is driving around, something interesting happens inside the cooler. When you mix salt and ice in this way, you create a combination that can reach much colder temperatures than ice alone, meaning it can quickly cool the contents of the metal paint can. So, the mixture freezes while the motion of the tank churns it up and keeps it moving – much like the process carried out by a traditional ice cream maker.
This means that once the truck comes to a stop and the contraption is popped open, there’s a puddle of cold water in the cooler and the paint tin is full of a slightly frozen ice cream. It’s genius, and works in the same way as this handheld ice cream maker I had back in the day, but with much less effort on your part.
So, if you’re the kind of person driving around town in a truck with massive wheels, give this simple recipe a follow and let us know the result. It’ll give a whole new meaning to the term “ice cream truck.”