What does it take to make real ice cream? Real ice cream is the kind that doesn’t use an ice cream base full of manufactured ingredients. We checked in with Lia from Goat Barn Farm here in Tamworth to get the ‘scoop’.
Lia maintains a small tribe of Nigerian Dwarf goats. She milks them twice a day. Teacup Giraffe is her star milker, and she yields about 1/2 gallon of milk per day. Her daughter Meadow is right behind her in quantity, but all in all, she has 8 goats to milk. Lia milks by hand, but her husband uses a machine when he helps out.
The fresh milk sits in the fridge for three days to separate and to sweeten up. After that she mixes it together with sugar and salt before cooking the milk. She heats the milk to a temperature of 150ºF. Then it chills in the fridge for one or two more days.
Thursday is churning day. They invested in an ice cream churner which takes about two hours to churn a two gallon batch of ice cream. It takes 20 minutes to clean the churner in between batches, but in the end she produces six to ten gallons of finished ice cream per week.
She makes a homemade vanilla extract, but the rest of the ingredients she uses to flavor the ice cream is sourced locally. She uses organic ingredients whenever possible and works with local growers to create new flavors. She recently worked with an herbalist to create an herbal remedy flavor.
Note that the Goat Barn ice cream does not use eggs in their recipe. This is because Lia is allergic to chicken eggs and saw a need for egg-free ice cream. Technically this means the ice cream is a gelato, but the result is delicious!
Real ice cream made at the source is a rare find these days. Lia shared some of the difficulties she had working with the State to sell ice cream since it wasn’t on the raw milk bill that passed a couple years ago. It was quite a journey but Lia and another farm was able to work with a state representative to get ice cream added to the bill.
Lia’s dedication for producing real, traditional ice cream at her own goat dairy makes Goat Barn Farm yet another Tamworth treasure!
Stop by her booth at the Tamworth Farmers’ Market on Saturdays, or buy from their farm stand. Their farmstand is open 24/7 June through October. For directions visit their website.
