How To Make Ice Cream

Anyone can learn how to make ice cream.

I remember when I was a kid, it used to be such a treat to have homemade ice cream. We had a strawberry patch out back so that was the kind that we made most often. We had one of those old timey ice cream freezer...you know, the kind you had to crank by hand. You had to have plenty of ice, rock salt and muscle. We'd take turns cranking it for what seemed like forever and when it was done, we'd all fight to see who was going to get to lick the dasher.

I think about those times now every time I turn the knob on my electric ice cream maker. They're wonderful memories, but I'm glad they're just memories and homemade ice cream doesn't have to be such hard work.

All you really need to learn how to make ice cream, I'm talking about incredible ice cream is high quality ingredients, a decent ice cream maker, good recipes and a sense of adventure.

So, do you want to learn how to make ice cream?

Well, the basic ice cream recipes call for milk, cream, a sweetener, usually sugar or honey, maybe eggs and flavorings. The richest, creamiest ice creams contain the most cream which has a higher butterfat content. Lighter ice cream recipes with fewer calories contain more milk which is lower in butterfat. Basically, you can take any recipe and combine different amounts of milk and cream to suit your tastes.

As for canned evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk, you can certainly use them but, I, for one, am not very fond of it and would only use it as a last resort.

Once you learn how to make ice cream, you may want to do some experimenting with recipes, here is a list of the amounts of butterfat for each of product:

Heavy Cream............................................................................36%
Whipping Cream/light whipping cream/medium cream.................30 to 36%
Light Cream......................................................................18 to 30%
Half and Half, coffee creamer..........................................10 1/2 to 18%
Sweetened condensed whole milk.....................9% and 40% added sugar
Evaporated milk...............................................8% and 50% less water
Whole milk...........................................................................3 to 4%
Low-fat milk......................................................................0.5 to 2%
Skim milk....................................................................less than 0.5%

The one piece of equipment you must have if you want to learn how to make ice cream is an ice cream maker.

There are plenty of ice cream machines on the market today from the old hand crank ones like we had when I was a kid to sophisticated, expensive machines that can run hundreds of dollars.

Now, I can tell you from experience that the old time hand crank machines make some pretty good ice cream as long as you have plenty of people who are willing to put forth the effort...but, when given a choice, I'll take my 2-quart Cuisinart electric ice cream maker every time. I bought it a couple of years ago for around $80 and it has made quite a few wonderful batches of homemade ice cream.

You can get one like the one that I have here

The most important thing to remember if you want learn how to make ice cream is that all ice cream, whether it is commercial or homemade, has ice crystals. The key to good ice cream is to make sure that the ice crystal are as small as possible so they won't be noticeable. The faster you freeze the mix, the smaller the ice crystals will be so, make sure that your canister is frozen and your mix is very very cold before adding it to your machine.

Now that you know the basics of how to make ice cream, below, are some delicious ice cream recipes that I'm sure you will enjoy! I hope that you enjoy making them but don't stop there. Live a little...try adding different flavors...that's how I came up with the Krispy Kreme Ice Cream recipe. The great thing is that once you learn to how to make ice cream, you can make it the way that you want it...any way you want.

Butter Pecan Ice Cream

Banana Ice Cream

Krispy Kreme Ice Cream

Chosen as one of the 50 Best Southern Food Blogs by

If you like my website, you're gonna love my new ecookbook Tried and True Recipes from Mama's Kitchen.

Now you can make your favorite restaurant recipes at home!

Chosen as one of the 50 Best Southern Food Blogs by

If you like my website, you're gonna love my new ecookbook Tried and True Recipes from Mama's Kitchen.

Now you can make your favorite restaurant recipes at home!