Make your own ice cream

CFC

I have never made ice cream before but have pushed the boat out with xmas money and bought an M and S ice cream maker with freezer.

Now I want recipes. I've been hunting on the web and some recipes say at the bottom they are unsuitable for ice cream machines. Why, and how do I tell which ones will be ok and which may be a problem?

ascot64

I can recommend the Ben & Jerry's ice cream book from Amazon. It really is worth spending the money on. When I spent nearly £300 quid on my ice cream maker I thought it worthwhile investing a a couple of books well three actually! The Ben & Jerry's book was the cheapest and is the only one I now use.

kal25

Hi guys, was very taken by this thread. so after shopping yesterday I decided to have a go at making some hm icecream.:D . Using the first post cheap reciepe. Perhaps I was a bit too ambitious as I didn't want vanilla but mint & choc chip:rolleyes: . So I brought some peppermint..then realised I'd already got some, didn't buy green colouring cuz already thought I'd got some(seemed to have dissappeared, perhaps done more green mint custard than thought?).

My question is should it be really hard or soft? because although it tastes ok, it is quite soft compared to shop brought icecream, Is this right or have I done something wrong? Also can anyone explaine why my choc chips are @ the bottom of the tub? is there a way I can get them back into the icecream?
TIA kal25

shepherdgirl

Hi

Does anyone make HM Ice-cream?

Been watching Masterchef and picked up too many ideas LOL.
Trying to cut calories, but cutting additives is main motivation,

Love gadgets and would like a machine like they used, but way off budget. Might be able to stretch to a cheap version that you put in the freezer, but, do you really need a machine? If you do, how can I convince OH that it’s a good idea to get another gadget?

Any hints, tips or recipes to start me on my way

lolarentt

I stared with a decent brand, Magimix, but the 'freeze the bowl first' type, the plan being to progress to the built in freezer model if the useage justified it later. I'm still on the original and it's fine for the amount we use it. There are plenty of low calorie ices you can make, and plenty of recipes around.

A very simple lower calorie one is to buy a carton of fresh low fat custard (the Waitrose one is good) and simply mix with half fat creme creme fraiche! Tastes great!

ubamother

I don't have a machine, but make icecream by making mixture in food processor - putting whole bowl with blade still in into the freezer and rewhizzing it every couple of hours until fully frozen. Only takes a couple of minutes - its the halfway between making it by hand and whisking by hand every few hours which isn't much fun and having a machine.

otterspasm

I've never had any success with ice cream without a machine. I have since picked up a magimx at a car boot sale and haven't looked back. Obviously other people can make it without a machine but I'm totally useless at it so my tip would always be to keep an eye open at car boot sales and on ebay :-)

Debt_Free_Chick

It's very difficult to achieve low-cal HM ice-cream. The basic IC recipe is to fold whipped double cream :eek: :eek: into a HM custard, made with single cream or whole milk, egg yolks and caster sugar :eek: :eek: :eek: So you can see the challenge in that lot on the calorie front

There are recipes which use a non-custard base and/or don't include double cream but, arguably, you are moving away from a "pure" ice cream to something similar, but slightly different.

Having said that, there is absolutely no comparison between HM ice cream and even the top-notch so called "luxury" ice creams that you buy. HM is in a league of its own.

I regularly make all sorts of ice cream and have a Gaggia Gelatiera - definitely not cheap, so you would need to be sure that you are going to get maximum use from it. Gaggia sell reconditioned machines which are good value for money, but still not "cheap"!

It is possible to make good IC without a machine - but you need an alarm clock to remind you to go and give the thing a good stir every hour or so. And you need to be religious at stirring vigorously to remove all the ice crystals. I guess you could process it rather than stirring it, but I imagine that would get quite tedious.

And remember, you will need room in your freezer on the day you decide to make it, to accommodate the container.

Stephen_Leak

It's dead easy. They didn't have all this fancy kit, when ice cream in Italy, when was invented - by an architcect - as a dessert to defy the laws of nature.

My Mum won a tin of coconut milk at her "Old Age Perishers" club and I always get a "Ready Steady Cook" challenge with what she gets. They get a bag of stuff and it's probably a fix - I get one tin.

Anyway, I added a tin of condensed milk, and put it in a shallow dish in the freezer. Then just stir the frozen bits from the edge into the middle every hour or so. Eventually, it's all frozen and you've got coconut ice cream.

It's mega-sweet and death to any diet, but once in a while who cares?

henbane

Hi
I've got hens so I'm lucky enough to have plenty of eggs to make icecream.
I do the following, adapted from the recipe in Hens in the Garden, Eggs in the Kitchen.

Have three bowls in a row and you need an electric hand mixer.
Separate 8 eggs
Put the yolks in one bowl with 25g sugar (supposed to use icing sugar but I use caster sugar).
Put the whites in another bowl
And in the third bowl put 300ml cream and a healthy dollop of greek yoghurt with a splash of vanilla essence.
Start with the egg whites, whizz till thick and add 25g of sugar and whizz again till thick and cloudy.
Move on to the egg yolks and sugar mix, whizz till pale and thick.
Move on to the cream/yoghurt mix and whizz till starts to thicken.

Mix egg yolk mixture with cream mixture and then add the egg white mixture till all combined. It all takes about 5 minutes and you get a delicious icecream and when you've got the eggs it only costs around £1.50 for 20 portions.

Pot up ( I use individual plastic pots that hold about a soup ladle full of the icecream mix) This makes around 20 pots of icecream. Keep in the freezer and get out at the start of the meal so will be soft by the time you get to dessert.

There are lots of ways to vary for flavour, I like to sometimes use that divine coconut yoghurt or add lemon juice and zest to the cream mixture, or mix some cocoa powder with water to add to the cream mix.

I used to make a lot of fruit puree based icecreams with the icecream maker but I don't now as the fruit goes further and it's less expensive if you make plain icecream and eat it with fruit compote.

Good luck with the icecream making
Henbane