OK, so I just finished playing Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days on the Nintendo DS. First of all OH MY GOD, SADDEST ENDING EVAR! EVARRRRR!!! Second of all, after nearly every mission you complete, Roxas, Axel, and Ms. Mary-Sue of the day Xion go up to the clock-tower in Twilight Town and have themselves some sea salt ice-cream pops. Now, I’m a decent cook, and as any self respecting Kingdom Hearts geek, I was very curious as to what sea salt ice-cream tasted like. What better way to figure that out, than to make it myself!

Cut to about a week ago. Friend and fellow DO XIII member Mike was having his birthday celebration. Considering that he had access to liquid nitrogen (don’t ask how, but two goats, a baseball bat, and a waffle wrapped in plastic were involved) he figured, what better way to celebrate being one year closer to death than to make ice-cream using the liquid nitrogen and the overwhelming power of SCIENCE!!! All party-goers were able to pick one flavor of ice-cream they wanted to make and of course me, fresh off my cry fest from repeatedly watching the ending of 358/2 days. decoded that mine would be the favorite of Nobodies everywhere, sea salt flavor.

Now liquid nitrogen based sea-salt ice-cream is the GEEKIEST ICE-CREAM YOU CAN MAKE. It uses an obscure science based ice-cream making method to make a flavor prominently featured in a video game. Awesome! Most of the recipes on the internet didn’t actually appeal to me, so instead I used my own favorite custard base and tweaked the recipe myself. The result was phenomenal. The sea salt ice-cream we made was described by Rob to be “far too awesome.” We totally understood why Roxas had this every day. Trust me, it was amazing.

Now what sort of people would we be if we didn’t share this recipe with you. Just follow these simple steps and you too will be able to make your own sea salt ice-cream, betray your friends, get trapped in a virtual reality town, and eventually cease to exist … well you will be able to at least make the ice-cream.

THE SUPER DELUXE TOTALLY AWESOME OFFICIAL DISORGANIZATION XIII SEA SALT ICE CREAM RECIPE!

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

EQUIPMENT

• Wire whisk or fork
• Wooden spoon
• Medium sized saucepan
• Medium sized bowl
• 1 cup measure
• 1 teaspoon measure
• Ice-cream maker or ice-pop molds or a cooler of liquid nitrogen (optional)
• 1 heart (optional … get it)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• sea-salt
• blue and green food coloring (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Re-arrange the letters of your name and add an X somewhere.
2. Crack 2 eggs into the bowl and whisk well for a few minutes. A wire whisk works best but a fork can do in a pinch.
3. Add the cup of sugar into the eggs and continue to whisk well until creamy.
4. Heat the milk in the saucepan over medium heat until warmish hot while constantly stirring with the wooden spoon (do not use a metal spoon it will scratch your pot and make the milk burn easier). The milk should be right before boiling, but do not let it boil. Do not heat too fast or the milk will curdle. Whole milk works best and makes the creamiest and most delicious ice cream, however any milk will do in a pinch (I actually used 2%) and if you are watching your weight feel free to use skim.
5. Add the egg and sugar mixture into the warm milk and heat over medium to low heat until thickened. This will take a while and the mixture may boil a bit. If it does reduce your heat to low (to prevent further boiling) and keep stirring until it has the consistency of very thin pudding. If you want a slightly richer ice cream, add a couple more sprinklings of sugar to this step.
6. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stick it in the fridge to cool.
7. Once your mixture has cooled to room temperature or below, take it out of the fridge and add the heavy cream and vanilla. People who want a slightly richer ice-cream may want to add a little more vanilla than usual.
8. Add sea-salt slowly and taste until you have a slightly salty but sweet flavor to your liking. I like my sea-salt ice cream very salty and put a little under a teaspoon of salt in. Some people like less, some people like more.
9. (Optional) Add the food coloring. To get the traditional kingdom hearts color, I used 10 drops of blue and 2 drops of green.

This is your ice cream, except the only problem is, it’s not iced yet. To get it nice and cold and frosty you will use one of four methods.

THE ICE POP METHOD

This is the simplest method, and it results in sea salt ice cream pops much like you see in Kingdom Hearts 2 and 358/2 days. Simply pour your mixture into your ice-pop molds and put the molds into your freezer. When they are fully frozen you will have ice cold sea salt ice cream pops ready to be taken to your nearest clock tower.

THE ICE CREAM MAKER METHOD

This method results in hard ice-cream much the consistency of what you would find in a local Edy’s tub. Simply turn the ice cream maker on and pour your concoction in and let it run from 1-2 hours. You will have to wait longer than normal for sea salt ice-cream to freeze because the salt lowers the freezing temperature. After it has thickened, place it in a storage container and put it in the freezer to freeze.

THE LIQUID NITROGEN METHOD

This method is possibly dangerous and we don’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t have experience dealing with liquid nitrogen, supervision, and a friend to help. Basically, pour the liquid nitrogen directly into your ice cream mixture very slowly bit by bit while stirring constantly. Your ice cream will thicken gradually as the liquid nitrogen burns off. Do NOT let the liquid nitrogen come in contact with skin or get on any hair or cloth or carpet. Any liquid nitrogen that gets caught in a skin crevice or hair or something could cause third degree burns. Handle it with the same caution you would use when dealing with hot boiling oil in a fryer. However, if you succeed you will have the creamiest soft serve ice cream you will have ever tasted.

THE GHETTO FABULOUS WAY

If you have none of these other options available to you, simply put the mixture in a container and stick it in the freezer. This basically creates a brick of ice cream, way harder than any of the other methods, but it still tastes good and you can scrape it out and put it in a bowl all the same.

There! Now you have all you need to go and make your own sea salt ice-cream. Make a batch right away and share it with your friends … except for Demyx … Demyx is a tool.

(First two images are copyright Square-Enix. Last image is copyright Meru-Chan from Deviantart. Check out her stuff, she is awesome!)