It was the Fourth of July and my 3-year-old goddaughter, Maeve, sat in the sandbox at the family farm, filling a plastic cup with sand until it was heaping.

"What are you making, Maeve?" I asked.

"Ice cream."

"Oh yeah? What kind of ice cream?"

"Vanilla."

"With sprinkles?"

"No."

"With chocolate sauce?"

"No."

"Just plain?"

"Yes."

Maeve, clearly, is brilliant. She knows nothing beats a plastic cup full of homemade vanilla ice cream. No toppings necessary.

Of course, Maeve's also lucky enough to have been born into a family with a long history of making its own ice cream. It's not that the Kellys of Altoona are culinary wonders (except for you, Aunt Linda of the legendary meatballs). It's just that my mom's family kept making ice cream long after most others stopped. A generation or two ago, homemade ice cream was about as rare as chocolate chip cookies. The tricky part was getting the ice. My Grandma McCaffrey's dad used a hammer to chip ice off the big block of ice in their "fridge" to pack around the cream.

That probably sounds like nonsense to anyone who has never seen a traditional ice cream maker. Here's how it works: A long metal canister about 7 inches across, and either 4 or 6 quarts deep, sits on a metal peg in a wooden barrel. Inside the canister are "paddles," two long wooden blades attached to a metal rod that continually stir the cream. Ice and rock salt (which lowers the temperature of the custard) are packed around the canister. A heavy piece of metal with a crank lies across the top and fits on the paddle rod. Turning the crank turns the paddles and, after 45 minutes or so, with enough ice and salt and churning, you get ice cream. Archaic as that may sound, I got mine two years ago at Target (White Mountain, 6 quarts, $189.99).

Of course, this is harder than hopping in a car and visiting the freezer section of Giant Eagle. So, sadly, ice cream has crossed into the realm of "why make it when you can buy it."

The result is that a certain mystique (uncommon = must be difficult) has sprung up around the homemade variety. Which is good and bad. Good because you can quickly achieve the status of dessert god among your friends; bad because there's less homemade ice cream to go around and make the world a better place.

Let this be the beginning of a brave new concept: You can make ice cream. Have doubts? Read on and realize, "My word. If Kate can make ice cream, I can do it blindfolded, on one foot, holding a crying baby."

So one Sunday this summer, I scheduled my first ice cream soiree. Friday night found me in my kitchen, a small puddle of chocolate custard at my feet, arranging what was left of the stuff into the "ice bath" as per my recipe. I was supposed to drop the temperature of the custard down from very hot to 70 degrees.

Now, not all kitchens were created equal. Some chefs come to the counter armed with Aga ranges, Wusthof knives and vacuum marinators. My sad, small, rental apartment fridge did not come equipped with even an ice maker or, for that matter, ice trays. So my ice bath would have to be improvised.

The result: my KitchenAid mixer bowl (the only metal bowl I own), floating in a swirl of frozen peas, with a spikey crown of unopened Valu Time freezer pops, half-sunk in the custard goo.

The panic had set in on Thursday. How much ice cream would 25 people eat? What flavors should I make? What if no one wants to take a turn cranking? And then, the realization -- I had never made custard-based ice cream.

The new custard recipe I was using had six steps -- about three more than I'm comfortable with. I was used to mixing cream and sugar and eggs and vanilla flavoring into an enormous bowl, pouring it into the metal ice cream canister and cranking. Notice that doesn't involve cooking any eggs. The custard recipe I was about to attempt required heating the cream mixture until all threat of salmonella poisoning was cooked away.

But, in the spirit of kitchen adventure and bringing Post-Gazette readers the very best non-poisoning ice cream tips possible, I said "Bring it on, fancy Fine Cooking custard recipe."

The plan was to make chocolate in advance with an electric maker, then make vanilla and strawberry with old-fashioned makers at the party, where a full spread of toppings would be available. This meant I had to make three custard bases in advance.

You've already heard how the chocolate started out.

But it got better. The next day, I poured what I could fit of the chocolate custard into the electric ice cream maker, flipped the switch on and went outside to sweep the porch. Thirty minutes of gentle whirring later, I had my first batch. It was almost too easy.

Vanilla was next. Now vanilla, simple as is it may be, is the ultimate way to prove homemade ice cream is leagues better than store-bought: there are no chunks of chocolate or fruit to hide behind.

It was all going fine and dandy. I was a pro, having practically memorized the recipe. I'd heated the cream and sugar, added the vanilla, whipped in the egg yolks and was slowly stirring, waiting for it to thicken when, suddenly, my three quarts of soon-to-be custard curdled. And this was at about 11:15 Saturday night, I was out of sugar and I still had strawberry custard to make. Uncool.

But I pressed on. I was spreading the love of homemade happiness, passing on the gospel of frozen goodness. I was a missionary for ice cream bliss.

Family (the choir) and friends (the converts) arrived around 1 p.m.

"Kate, this isn't technically a soiree. Soirees are in the evening. This is a social," my husband's friend Michael Burrows was kind enough to inform me.

So he got to crank first.

About 30 to 40 minutes into it, my mom, the real veteran of the group, decided that even though the cranks had become so hard to turn the makers could hardly be kept on the ground, the ice cream wasn't quite done. So up she went, to stand on the top, just like she did as a kid when her dad was cranking. Michael, who had never even seen an ice cream maker, stood on top of the other.

Tradition maintained! And spread!

After utilizing four 5-pound bags of ice, several plastic cupfuls of water softener pellets and approximately 45 minutes of vigorous cranking with a daring soul acrobatically perched on top of each mixer, we cleared the ice and salt away from the lids, carefully wiped them with a dish rag to keep any salt water from dripping in and lifted the lids.

A cheer erupted.

The ice cream, smooth and rich and delicious, was just as ice cream should be.

Maeve would've loved it.

PG tested

The Fine Cooking article this recipe hails from was extremely excellent. Instead of giving a couple of set recipes, it gave a basic custard recipe and then ingredients to "infuse" (step one), to "add" (step two) and to "mix in" (step three), depending on your taste. So a cook could infuse crushed coffee beans, add peppermint extract and mix in broken cookies. Or infuse cinnamon and mix in toasted nuts. You get the idea. Perusing recipe books seemed stifling in comparison.

-- Kate McCaffrey

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• Table salt
• 5 large egg yolks

In a medium saucepan, mix 1 cup of the cream with the milk, sugar and a pinch of salt. Warm the cream mixture over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and tiny bubbles begin to form around the edge of the pan, 3 to 4 minutes. (Add time if you're making more than one quart.)

This is where you infuse your choice of flavoring. Cover, remove from heat and let sit one hour. Taste and let sit longer if you want a stronger flavor. If not infusing, proceed with the recipe. (I didn't try infusing.)

Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with several inches of ice water. Set a smaller metal bowl (one that holds at least 11/2 quarts) in the ice water. Pour the remaining cup of cream into the inner bowl (this helps the custard cool quicker when you pour it in later. Next time I will prepare the ice bath first, before mixing the custard ingredients. The bowl and cream will have a longer time to chill. Or skip the ice bath altogether if making your custard the night before.) Set a fine strainer on top of inner bowl.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks. If you have infused the cream mixture, re-warm it over medium-high heat until tiny bubbles begin to form around the edge of the pan, 1 to 2 minutes. In a steady stream, pour half of the warm cream mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly to prevent the eggs from curdling.

Pour the egg mixture back into the starting pan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heatproof cooking spoon or rubber spatula until the custard thickens slightly (it should be thick enough to coat the utensil and hold a line drawn through it with another spoon) -- 4 to 8 minutes. An instant-read thermometer should read 175 to 180 degrees at this point. Don't let the sauce overheat or boil, or it will curdle. Immediately strain the custard into the cold cream in the ice bath. If using an infusion ingredient, press firmly in the strainer with a spoon or spatula to extract as much flavor as possible. If you want to add melted chocolate and cocoa, do so now. (I italicized that because I managed to skip over that sentence at least 6 times as I was desperately rereading the recipe, trying to figure out when to add the chocolate. And my custard was never very thick, but thick enough to hold a line.)

Cool the custard to below 70 degrees by stirring it over the ice bath. To add a flavor other than chocolate, set it into the cooled custard.

Refrigerate the custard until completely chilled, at least 4 hours. Then freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. If using mix-ins, fold them into the just-churned ice cream. Transfer the ice cream to an air-tight container and freeze solid for at least 4 hours.

Yields 1 quart.

Coffee: 1 1/2 cups coarsely crushed medium-roast coffee beans

Orange/lemon: Zest of 4 medium orange/lemons, finely grated

Vanilla: 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped out (use both the split bean and the seeds). (I didn't put vanilla bean in my vanilla custard simply because the stuff costs so much.)

Tea: 1/4 cup loose black tea leaves, such as jasmine, Earl Grey or English breakfast

Fresh basil/mint: 1 cup tightly packed, coarsely torn leaves.

Vanilla: 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Chocolate: 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped and melted, plus 1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa (I used Hershey's cocoa and semi-dark chips)

Strawberry: 1 pound fresh or frozen strawberries, pureed, strained and mixed with 1/2 cup sugar. (I think the sugar could probably be skipped, but used it anyway. All added fruits, like peaches or raspberries, should be peeled, pitted and pureed. Tamper with amount of fruit to taste.)

Liqueur/liquor: 3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys, Kahlua, amaretto, whiskey, rum, etc.

Go wild! Mix in whatever you want. Bacon, Snickers, pretzels, nuts, cookies, jam, Nutella, brownies, peanut butter. Just be wary of adding whole strawberries and the like -- chunks of fruit will freeze solid.

-- Adapted from Fine Cooking