Getting Icecubes out of the tray
Method (c) 1999 Merle Zimmermann.
I don't know about you, but I always used to have a terrible time trying to remove icecubes from those little plastic
trays that you freeze the water in. After extensive research and experimentation, I have developed a Method
which can be used to get the cubes out of the tray without major inconvinence. Perhaps you have seen this before, but for the benefit of those who haven't figured it out on their own, I will present an outline of my Method here..
Required:
- (plastic) Icecube tray full of frozen water.
My Method:
- Remove tray from freezer.
- Holding tray lengthwise, (hand[888tray888]hand), apply twisting motion, left hand twisting the near edge of the tray away from you, right hand twisting the far edge of the tray towards you. Switch directions several times- the cubes should make little cracking sounds as they become unstuck from the plastic.
- NOW, lift the tray STRAIGHT up, the abruptly pull it STRAIGHT downwards (faster than the pull of gravity). The cubes should be left hanging in the air for a few moments, then they will fall back down into their respective notches in the tray surface.
- My method consists of doing the previous UP/DOWN motion, only moving the ice cube tray slightly forwards when you are pulling it down (Most people will do this anyway, so you don't need to try very hard). When the cubes fall back into the tray, some of them usually land on edge, which makes it easy to remove them from the tray without touching any of the other icecubes.
At no point during the process are the cubes touched by anything but the tray, so they remain perfectly clean and uncontamminated by human hand. Therefore, with this method, you do not need to put seperate trays in the freezer for each person who eats with you. This saves a lot of freezer space for the seperate tubs of ice cream.
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