Ice Cream 101

Ok. Megan and Ricky got a KitchenAid standing mixer (ZOMG), and it has an ice cream attachment. I'm not sure what that attachment would be (a giant spoon?), but Megan's going to try her hand at home-made ice cream, so here's my advice (since she didn't ask.):

1. There are four basic kinds. Frozen custard (requires eggs, contains raw egg, is a pain in the booty), ice cream (no eggs, varying amounts of cream), basic ice cream with mix-ins (ie, you're not really making "peach ice cream" you're making iced cream with peaches mixed in, which is super-easy), and sorbet.

2. Of the four, sorbet is the easiest. There's really nothing to it. You mix sugar and stuff (fruit, flavored water, whatever), add a little acid and a little alcohol (for scoopability), and freeze it. The only important things are: do not leave out the alcohol because it will freeze like a brick. In a medical emergency, you can leave out the alcohol and substitute crap-loads of sugar, but ewww. Second, be sure that you chill the liquid thoroughly before putting it in the ice-cream machine.

3. Next easiest, and very suited to creativity, is the mix-in. Essentially, you're making a base then adding whatever you like. You mix up some cream, milk, sugar and flavoring (vanilla, for example), then once it's mostly frozen in the machine, you drizzle in caramel or stir in peaches, or whatever. If I make candied kumquat ice cream, this is what I'll do.

4. Third, and what I do when I make ice cream, is actual flavored ice cream. Here, you are basically making an infusion, then freezing it. In other words, you heat milk/cream with something (cinnamon, lemon verbena, espresso), then chill it and freeze it in the machine. This works fine, but be aware that you always seem to need more of the flavor element than you'd think. I made lots of cinnamon ice cream before I got anything that really tasted cinnamon-y.

5. Frozen custard. Blech. Ice cream (like #3 and 4 above) isn't going to be as lovely and scoop-able as frozen custard will be. It's going to be a bit icy, in fact. But frozen custard will require you to whisk egg yolks, add hot cream to temper, then add the custard back into the warm cream base, then strain, then chill, then freeze. And you'll be eating pretty much raw egg yolks, which I don't find appealing when I think about it which I try not to do. I find this kind of stuff to violate the Too Many Steps rule. But it makes nice scoops, I'll give you that.

One more thing: invest in some heavy-duty storage containers. You want something like old-fashioned Tupperware, not Glad-ware. It needs to be relatively thick with a relatively sturdy top (because when you pry it off straight out of the freezer it should bend, not break). Ice cream machines make between 1 and 2 pints of ice cream from most recipes, so if you get 3-4 containers that size you can stock the freezer with yummy goodness and then coast for a while.

And that's my 250,421 cents. Since you asked.




P.S. Don't bother making vanilla ice cream. I tried for months. The best of it came out tasting like...Breyer's.