Q: Is there a way to make shaved ice without a shaved ice maker? I can crush it in my blender, but it's a bit different. Any ideas?
Sent by Richard
Editor: Richard, this is a great question and something we were just wondering about too. But we can't think of much besides the aforementioned blender and the food processor. One idea, too, if you already have an ice cream machine, is to start from scratch and just put water in your ice cream machine and let it run. It would probably turn into a sorbet-like consistency, somewhat similar to shaved ice.
Readers, any other ideas?
Related: Can You Help Me Recreate This Shaved Ice Dessert?
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a microplane, but you would need to work quickly.
real shave ice is a big hunk of ice and sliced up by a blade. you could probably approximate the effect with big ice pieces and a mandolin
Possibly using a food processor with a shaving or grating disk installed. I'd make sure you didn't use that blade for anything else though, probably will dull it pretty bad.
If you change the mixture you can scrape the frozen concoction with a spoon to get the right consistency. We do this when we make bourbon ices (basically just a bit of water, pink lemonade concentrate & bourbon) and the sugar and booze keep them from freezing too hard.
I know in New York City they sell "frio-frio's" which are made manually from a huge chunk of ice. I found the following:
http://www.canningpantry.com/manual-ice-shaver.html
Is it out of line to suggest the Snoopy SnoCone machine which has made a return to production!?
http://www.amazon.com/The-Original-Snoopy-Sno-Cone-Machine/dp/B0021VIDOQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1274133846&sr=8-1
Sorry, saw this on The Today Show last week and couldn't resist, I remember loving this as a kid, though the new reviews aren't so good.
I always used a manual ice shaver but short of something like that, a unitasker if there ever was one, I think you're out of luck.
Last summer I tried to put water in my KitchenAid Ice Cream attachment and it stopped the machine. Got too solid. Now soda works great though. We can get shaved ice in a vita mix. Works great if you have one.
If they're willing to put some time in, how about a granita? It's not totally the same, but close.
Our old Oster blender came with an ice crusher/shaving attachment. It made a deafening noise but turned out the best sno-cone ice imaginable...just perfect for 4 bottomless pits (growing kids).
Raspado makers in LA use these to manually shave the ice down. They're small and cheap and worth to keep around for the summer. All you need is a block of ice and some syrups
http://www.mexgrocer.com/50409-87174.html
http://www.perpetualkid.com/the-original-slush-mug.aspx
Always loved these...