You scream, I scream...

Remember the simple and exquisite pleasures of being a kid in the summertime? Funkyness, heat, jello, ice cream, and liquid nitrogen. Ahh, yes, liquid nitrogen, every teen science nerd's wet dream. Who wouldn't wanna play around with a tank of that stuff? I mean, you could pour some over a shakerful of martinis (or margaritas, or gin gimlets, or...) for the ultimate in slushy chilled refreshment. You could thoroughly freeze two cans of shaving cream, cut and peel the metal cans from around the frozen blocks of cream, and put the frozen cream cylinders inside someone's car in the sun -- when they heat up, they will decompress and fill the entire car with shaving cream (not nice, not nice at all, BUT TRE COOL). Or, you could mix nitrogen with some whipping cream, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and voila! The ultimate summer party dessert: instant homemade icecream, flash cooled with liquid N2.

Here's a snippet from the article that prompted my fond memories of chemlab:

"We mixed up a standard ice cream recipe calling for two quarts of cream, sugar, eggs, vanilla and flavoring. (Just about any ice cream recipe and flavor will work.) Then, working in a well-ventilated area (lest the nitrogen displace oxygen from the air) and with due regard for the ability of liquid nitrogen to freeze body parts solid, we gently folded about two liters of nitrogen syrup directly into the cream, much as you would fold in egg whites.

The result, literally 30 seconds later, was a half-gallon of the best ice cream I'd ever tasted. The secret is in the rapid freezing. When cream is frozen by liquid nitrogen at negative 196 degrees celsius, the ice crystals that give bad ice cream its grainy texture have no chance to form. Instead you get microcrystalline ice cream that is supremely smooth, creamy and light in texture."

Sweet!

-tn

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