Ice Cream (makers and recipes)

I can't help you with ice cream makers, but I do have a recipe for the nicest ice cream in the world! The recipe uses Christmas pudding, but you can use whatever you want in it instead.

1 small Christmas pudding (or whatever)
2 tbs brandy
600ml double cream
397g tin condensed milk

Soften the pudding in the microwave, add the brandy and allow to cool. Then break it into little bits with a fork.
Whip the cream and condensed milk together until stiff, fold in the cold pudding and stir well.
Pour into a freezer proof tub and leave for at least 8 hours.

It is seriously yummy!

On a similar theme to the one above, and also seriously delish!!!! ...

Festive Ice cream
Ingredients
400g mascarpone
200g icing sugar
4 egg yolks, beaten until pale
125 mls Cointreau
250 gms Christmas plum pudding
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out

Method

1 Mix the mascarpone, icing sugar, vanilla seeds and beaten egg yolks together thoroughly, and then whisk in the cointreau.


2 When the mixture is smooth, gently stir in the crumbled plum pudding. Pour into a plastic tub and freeze for a minimum of 1 hour.


3 Serve garnished with another splash of cointreau.

I have an ice cream maker, £20 from Asda a few years ago and it's a cupboard dweller. Not because it's useless - it makes very nice ice cream but in such small quantities. Less than a litre for six of us ain't enough.Plus you have to be mega organised leaving the bowl in the freezer overnight.

To prevent ice crystals forming, you have to keep "churning" the ice cream as it's freezing. There are two ways to do this .... put the fresh mixture in the freezer and then remove it every few hours and churn in it. If you have a food processor (and if the bowl is freezer proof) you could leave the mixture in the bowl, put it in the freezer and every couple of hours, remove it, put the bowl back on the processor, churn, return to the freezer and repeat. Many of the cheaper ice cream makers work on this principle. If you are getting ice crystals, you are leaving it too long in between churning, so increase the frequency.

Alternatively, you can buy an ice-cream maker with a freezer unit built in. This churns & freezes at the same time. I have this one

http://www.gaggia.uk.com/

And it's brilliant. Makes very smooth, very creamy ice-cream ready to eat in about 40-50 minutes - and I've never had a single ice crystal. However, to achieve this you need to spend over £300! Sorry. So you have to like home made ice cream an awful lot.

I only make ice cream from egg yolks & single cream (to make the custard) then whipped double cream - obviously, with different flavourings to suit. Our current favourite is Honey & Cardomom.

There is nothing to beat a good home made ice cream - just look at the list of ingredients on any bought tub. But the best machines are not cheap.

HTH

i wonder if anyone could help me with a few questions i've got at the minute.

Blamange - You have to add sugar and milk yourself to the sachet. The sachet is only cornflour & colouring/flavouring & preservatives. Can you make your own?

Ice-cream maker: any good? worth the money or just another kitchen gadget? (BTW got 2 kids with milk intollerance) Can you make it with goats milk or soya milk? How do you add flavourings? Can anyone give me a brief overview of these. Saw one in Boots yesterday for £19.99, am thinking of all those advantage points i've got.....

similarly yogurt makers - any good?

thanks guys