We make ice molds. Secrets that will allow you to get transparent ice without bubbles

17.04.2019 Bakery products

The question “How to make ice at home?” Causes many to smile. After all, what could be easier than collecting water in molds and stuffing it in the freezer ?! Just what if you don’t have an ice cube mold on hand or has it cracked? And the ice in restaurants and in the photo is somehow transparent, but at home it turns out white and cloudy. Of course, the restaurant uses ice machines, but at home you can do without them and prepare a small amount of transparent ice in the freezer. We will tell you in detail how to do it.

How to make transparent ice

Why does ordinary ice have a heterogeneous structure and white crystals in the center? The answer is simple: because of the composition of the water from which we prepare it. Everyone knows that water can be hard and soft; different substances can be dissolved in it. It is salts, gases, and other impurities that form large white crystals in pieces of ice during the process of freezing water and change its color.

Only non-carbonated purified water with minimal hardness during freezing can form transparent ice. If you prepare the ice correctly, it will have no taste or smell, and it will melt more slowly by about 40-50%. How to cook it:

Take purified water for baby food on the basis that for each guest you need 500-600 grams of ice.
Pour water into an enameled or stainless pan, bring to a boil, boil for 2 minutes, turn off the gas, cover and let cool.
Repeat boiling again, cool to room temperature under a lid. Thus, you will get rid of gases dissolved in water.

Pour the prepared water into molds and cover them with cling film and send them to the freezer until they solidify.

A few important details:

The freezer must be kept clean to prevent bacteria from entering the ice and absorbing unpleasant odors. Do not store ice in a container for fish and meat.
To avoid the formation of bubbles, pour water in three stages - first to the bottom, then to the middle, and only then to the edge of the mold, allowing each layer to completely harden. Also for this purpose, you can apply the method of slow freezing (temperature -1 Celsius during the day).
You can also freeze hot water (without covering with a film), taking into account the quality of the mold material and the power of the freezer.
You can store ice indefinitely.

How to make ice without molds

Any form other than glass can be used to make ice - glass will expand when the freezing water expands. You can take out the finished ice from a mold of any size and material, if you slightly heat the mold itself from the outside. If you do not have a special ice mold, you can use:

plastic glasses
plastic or metal covers
silicone molds for miniature cupcakes or sweets
chocolate box insert
small plastic bags
lego large constructor parts and other plastic toys

Before using all of these forms options must be processed. New plastic bags and plastic cups do not need to be washed, but it is better to wipe children's toys with alcohol.

How to make crushed ice

Desserts are even prepared from crushed ice in Asian countries, pouring it with fruit juices and syrups. For crushing ice use special devices. But at home such a thing only for crushing ice is unlikely that anyone will put it on. Therefore, you can use other methods to prepare small amounts of crushed ice.

Use hand crusher. This will take a lot of time and energy, but there will be little ice.
Take advantage food processor or blender: container with an S-shaped knife, pulsation mode. It will be noisy, but everything will work out subject to the normal power of the device and sharp knives.
The best method: put ice in a thick kitchen towel, wrap it properly and break it right into a towel ice mallet (or with a clean hammer for meat). Use a more even surface. We do not recommend using a plastic bag - its ice will simply tear and fly apart.

It's time to think about how to escape from the heat: summer is approaching inexorably! Cold drinks and neat ice cubes give real bliss on days when everything around melt under the sun. But, believe me, you can freeze not only water! Surely this post will be a revelation for you - to think of such a use of molds for ice, you need to try your best. Hang these wonderful ideas on the board of honor of your memory and use them with pleasure!

1. Freeze coffee and add it to milk. A delicious milkshake is ready in a couple of minutes! For lovers of sweets, another idea: you can freeze condensed milk!

2. Freeze the remaining wine. At any time you can cook marinara sauce, red wine sauce and other delicacies that include wine.

3. Frozen yogurt - a great treat in the heat. It’s a good idea to keep yogurt with a short shelf life.

4. Puree from apricots or peaches is easy to freeze. It will decorate any dessert!

5. Pieces of watermelon straight from the freezer! Mmmm ...

6. Frozen flowers? As I myself did not think of it ... It looks stunning.

7. It is difficult to imagine something more seductive: frozen strawberries in chocolate.

8. Frozen sweet grenadine syrup goes well with champagne and sweet alcoholic cocktails.

9. The juice of orange and grapefruit as if created for freezing. It’s so nice to drink citrus-flavored water in the heat!

10. Edible glitter from gum arabic - a great decor for different dishes and cocktails. And if they also freeze ...

12. Frozen aloe juice will be a cosmetic salvation in the heat: it tones and cools the skin by 100%!

13. Freeze smoothies from different berries and fruits. Ambulance when it's hot and hungry!

14. The flowers you can eat are frozen flowers.

15. Freeze chocolate and add it to smoothies.

16. Mojito is always at hand: freeze lime or lemon juice and mint.

17. Multi-colored ice cream in cubes is a chic addition to a regular milkshake.

From the outside it seems that there is nothing easier than making ice for cocktails, especially with special molds. In practice, everything is not so rosy - before you make ice, you will have to study the important nuances of the process. Otherwise, the pure and transparent ingredient for alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks will have the appearance of a cloudy gray substance.

Quite often, the housewives have a question how to make ice at home, if there is no suitable form at hand. Fans of experiments and creativity have developed several solutions for this case that will help to achieve the desired result with their own hands.

Secrets that will allow you to get transparent ice without bubbles

Frozen water and ice for cocktails are two completely different things. Contrary to the promises of manufacturers of ice-making devices, it is not enough to pour water into the mold and put it in the refrigerator. Only during the preliminary preparation can you count on the fact that the final product will be transparent and attractive.

There are several methods for producing high-quality ice with your own hands:

Treated water. Pour water into a steel or enameled container (most importantly, not aluminum) and bring to a boil. After the liquid has boiled for several minutes, we cool it naturally. Then boil the water again and cool again. In between boiling, do not forget to cover the container with a lid, preventing dust from settling. After processing, pour the water into molds and freeze. This approach allows you to get transparent ice due to the fact that air bubbles are removed, and water molecules are more closely adjacent to each other.

Tip: Regardless of the type of approach for ice making, professionals recommend that you always use filtered or drinking water. Otherwise, the unpleasant smell will go away only for a while and will be fully revealed after the cube gets into the drink.

Slow freezing. If the time and capabilities of the refrigeration unit allow, then you need to set the temperature to -1ºC. We wait until the temperature rises to the desired one and set the mold in the chamber with water poured over it. Additionally, it is recommended to wrap the appliance with cling film. The exposure time is at least 24 hours. Slow displacement of the bubbles as the liquid cools ensures that the ice is clear and even.
Freezing in a salty environment. Someone suggests using seawater to prepare the base, but if this option is not possible, you can prepare a salty environment with your own hands. True, to achieve the ideal concentration will only be possible by experience. Practice shows that with this approach, you can hope for the desired result even when freezing tap water. Pour water into a bowl, add salt, stir. We remove the container in the freezer, the temperature should not be lower than -2ºС. After the liquid becomes very cold, we lower the ice molds filled with water into it and put it back in the freezer.

The latter option is considered the most correct and preferred. During this treatment, ice cubes become not only transparent, but also smooth, without cracks and streaks. All harmful particles will be forced out, so the elements after getting into the drink will not cause an unpleasant odor. An additional advantage of the approach is that salt water can be kept in the freezer constantly (provided that the set temperature is maintained) and reused.

How to make ice without an ice mold - affordable creative

It is not necessary to have special molds at home or to design them yourself to prepare beautiful and original ice. If you wish, you can find many worthy ways out of the situation:

If it is not about making cocktails, but about serving one-component drinks, then you can prepare ice immediately in glasses. To do this, you need a suitable dishware that can withstand temperatures of -1ºС. Just pour a little chilled drinking or boiled water at the bottom of the glass and put it in the freezer for slow freezing. Be sure to ensure that the rest of the container is completely dry. This method allows you to achieve the necessary cooling, and the drink itself in the glass gives an unusual look.
To freeze water, you can use plastic cups with a bottom of various diameters. Pour liquid no more than a centimeter and freeze as usual. The output will be the original round pieces of ice. They can even be divided into halves or quarters, if you initially lay pieces of plastic, cut with your own hands from unnecessary bottles.
Some manage to make ice with lids. They can be made of plastic or metal, twisted or rolled up. The only difficulty is that, removing ice from such products, it is difficult not to damage it.
If desired, Lego designer parts or silicone molds can be adapted as blanks. You just need to thoroughly sanitize them before use.
In the worst case, you have to do with plastic bags. We cut them into large flaps or initially take packages of a very small volume. Pour water into them and twist balls of various sizes. Spread in a bowl and freeze according to the rules.

In addition, you can come up with other no less original options for making ice. The main thing is to act according to the rules, then the components will become a real decoration of the served drinks.

Well, admit, do you have at home? However, what a strange question I made up? Surely there is - most decent manufacturers of refrigerators and freezers have long been completing their goods with this simple device to combat the summer heat. Then I will ask in a different way - how do you use? In addition to the fact that they prepare banal ice, they can be used in dozens of different unusual ways! Do not believe? Forward, under the cut, I’ll tell you everything now!

Let’s immediately agree that we will omit non-culinary options (such as making cosmetic cubes for rubbing the skin), and we will only talk about edible ideas. Even with this limitation, the number of possible ways to use ice molds is quite large!

1. Freezing fresh herbs

Here it is, a miracle way, how to provide yourself with fresh herbs all year round! Finely chop any fresh herbs, mix with melted butter, ordinary vegetable oil, or just ram them into ice molds, freeze, remove after freezing, transfer to a regular bag and store in the freezer, using as needed. Just to disgrace, but how wise! Now greens are not only cheaper, but also more aromatic, so it's time to get ready to harvest it!

2. Bouillon cubes

Yes, it’s bouillon cubes, which greatly facilitate the life of any housewife, and working - even more so! Do not be too lazy to prepare a concentrated broth, pour it into ice molds and freeze. From now on, cooking soup for you will turn into a matter of 10 minutes!

3. Chocolate cubes

Milk with chocolate, hot chocolate, coffee with chocolate - be prudent, leave a small amount of goodies and freeze it in portioned ice molds. The hot day will come when you will be grateful to yourself for such forethought!

4. Wine cubes

Well, it happens that a small amount of wine remains in a bottle that you won’t get either here or here? Freeze! And then we crawl as necessary - adding to cocktails, stews or desserts, the recipe of which requires the addition of one or two tablespoons of alcohol (do not open a new bottle because of this!).

5. Ice cubes from herbal teas

Well, here you don’t need to talk for a long time, right? Just beautiful, just useful, just comfortable. Refreshes, cools, aromatizes.

6. Protein Freezing

It often happens that in a given recipe only yolks are required, but what to do with proteins? To freeze! After defrosting, they do not lose their properties, and can still be used to make dough, scrambled eggs or ice cream. The batch forms are convenient in that you can not defrost all 10 remaining proteins at once, but only the necessary amount.

7. Portioned mini ice cream for children

Great idea for parties and children's parties! Many children are not allowed to eat ice cream in standard portions, and in this version, you can just treat all the little ones with a delicious treat in a limited format. Curly ice cubes, homemade ice cream, fresh berries, candied fruits, nuts - oh, how beautifully you can decorate such a dessert!

8. Chocolate desserts and other sweets without baking

Elegant, right? It’s one thing to make homemade bounties the size of a baking sheet, and quite another to play a little and serve them in a miniature version. Cheesecakes, ice cream, mousses, chocolate covered strawberries, sorbets in ice tins - these are small joys that you just need to allow yourself from time to time!

9. Sushi

An absolutely incredible idea, but nonetheless - with the help of ice molds, you can make sets of sushi that are ideal in shape and size. Simple, fast and absolutely the same!

10. Baby purees and other foods for babies

Any mother knows that teaching a baby to adult food is very gradual - fish, vegetables, meat are given at first in microscopic doses. Meanwhile, boiling a microscopic dose of a rabbit or trout each time is extremely problematic and disadvantageous, therefore there is a way out: prepare a full, “convenient” portion, freeze excesses and use as necessary. The same thing applies to the cases when the introduction of the first feeding is planned for the winter season, and the season of zucchini and broccoli is now: you can immediately cook the vegetable puree and freeze it in small portions.

P. S. By the way, finally one question and advice. You know what freeze ice if there are no molds? No, no, let's not talk about special disposable ice packs, turn on your imagination! Firstly, the plastic inserts that are available in each "decent" box with sweets are wonderfully suitable - the cells in them are just the right size, they are different in shape and with beautiful corrugated edges. Exactly what is needed! The second option - do not be surprised, but these are children's sets for modeling from plasticine, small pasochki, figurines from sorters. The third - everything else that comes to your mind: disposable cups, small household items, silicone molds for sweets and other nonsense. Create, fantasize and do not give in to the gloom of heat!

Ice molds - an indispensable assistant in the kitchen, which should be in the arsenal of every housewife! This device will be especially useful in the summer, when there is heat on the street and you want to drink or eat something cool.

We have prepared for you 19 unusual ways to use ice molds that are sure to come in handy. Therefore, bookmark this article faster!

1. You can pour coffee into molds, freeze it and add it to milk in the heat. Get a great summer drink.
   2. The remains of red or white wine can be frozen and use these cubes for the preparation of various sauces.

   3. You can also freeze yogurt, especially if it has a short shelf life. This is a great summer treat that some people enjoy even more than ice cream!

   4. Freeze fruit puree. It is not only tasty and healthy, but also a very refreshing dessert!
   5. You can still freeze a watermelon and enjoy your favorite dessert, even in winter!
   6. Freezing water, put flowers there. Such ice can be used as a decoration!