Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Do your kids love ice-cream? Do they love playing ball?
If they do… (on both counts), and would rather avoid cranking frozen
desserts, then you will all delight in the toy ball ice-cream maker, marketed as the
Play & Freeze™!
Just fill the central container of the ball with frozen dessert
ingredients (in the right proportions), and the outer container with ice and rock salt. Then let
your kids play with the ball for 20 minutes, during which the ice cream will
freeze… Then…enjoy the dessert!
The principle of the toy ball ice cream maker restores the “old fashioned
process” of making home-made ice-cream, lost to modern motor-driven appliances
and refrigeration, without the tedium and labor of hand cranking. Indeed, this
dessert is fun to make, from start to finish!
The patent US5857351 (A) titled Play ball ice-cream maker recites this
invention in the most elegant patent style. Beyond process and play, the
invention is presented with health and educational benefits. The health
benefits recited include the possibility of making ice-cream with healthy
low-fat ingredients, devoid of additives and preservatives. The educational benefits
invoked are those of reflection on the scientific process of rock salt ice interactions with ingredients, and
the details of healthy nutrition, in the fun-filled process of playing ball.
The double compartment of the ball is
described succinctly below, in the Abstract
for US US5857351 (A), titled Play ball ice-cream maker. A patent
drawing of the ball is also included, and above the image of the marketed Play
& Freeze™ ice cream maker.
A toy ice cream maker being a preferably aluminum can with a lid
insertable into a larger container wherein the larger container is encased in a
spherical foam jacket. The smaller can has a lid and the larger can has a lid
providing that ingredients for a frozen dessert may be inserted into the inner
container and a mixture of rock salt and ice is insertable in the space between
the inner and outer can. Another lid, formed integrally with the jacket seals
the ice and rock salt in position. After the dessert ingredients have been
sealed in the inner container and the rock-salt and ice have been sealed in the
cooling container, the device, being a soft ball, is a toy that children
delight in rolling around thereby hastening congealing the ingredients to form
the dessert. Abstract US5857351
