Home Made Ice Cream

[MaggieTheCat]

For those who want ice cream but don't want to mess around with tempering eggs, I have a great basic ice cream recipe with NO EGGS that is very easy to modify with different flavors.

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
3 teaspoons dry instant pudding mix (any flavor, but make sure to get the pudding mix, not the gelatin mix)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup half-and-half
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
Extracts, oils, mix-ins, or other flavors of your choice (a few drops to a few teaspoons of liquid flavorings depending on how strong they are.)

Heat the milk in the microwave until very hot but not boiling, 1-2 minutes depending on your microwave. Add the sugar and dry pudding mix and stir until completely dissolved. May need to use a whisk and/or a fork to break up little clumps of the pudding powder, but make sure it's very well incorporated. Add the salt, half and half, cream, and any liquid flavorings (such as extracts) that you're using. Feel free to taste it at this point and adjust your flavorings accordingly. Cover and chill this mixture overnight or until very cold in the fridge. Once cold, freeze the mixture according to your ice cream maker's instructions, adding any solid mix-ins in the last 5 minutes of the freezing process.

Some variations that I have made:

Chocolate Ice Cream:
Use chocolate pudding mix. Add an extra 1-2 tablespoons of sugar, and 1-2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder. Mix the sugar, cocoa powder, and pudding powder well before adding to the hot milk to help it dissolve easier.

Fruit-Loops Ice Cream:
This was originally supposed to be Blue Moon ice cream, which is a novelty flavor found in the Wisconsin/Michigan/Minnesota area (and living in Texas now, I can't get it anymore.) I think it tastes like fruit-loops but not like blue moon, but everyone else always says that blue moon DOES taste like fruit-loops. I can't taste the similarities, but this ice cream turned out good anyway.
Use vanilla pudding powder and add vanilla extract, raspberry extract, lemon extract, and (optionally) almond extract. If you really want to go for the blue moon look, also add blue food coloring.

There are sooo many flavor combinations you can make with this ice cream, and the base takes less than 10 minutes to throw together. It turns out very smooth and creamy; a friend of mine remarked that it was the creamiest homemade ice cream he's ever had.

[lordlundar]

As for salt:
I know you always add a pinch of salt to cookies and what not, however I'm not a big baker, and always shy away from it (baking that is). I should try the pinch of salt for some of these flavors. Maybe I'll make a double batch of chocolate and see what happens with one of them salted.

Yeah, it's misunderstanding of salt that "if you add salt it tastes salty". The reality is that too much salt will make the food salty. But salt will energize the sweet and sour receptors on the tongue while at the same time block the bitter receptors. The result is desired tastes are more pronounced while less desirable ones are shut out, making the food taste better.

For ice cream, it's an even better benefit. Like when you use salt on a sidewalk to melt it, salt in the ice cream will make it easier to melt in the mouth, and the semi liquid form is the best state for tasting the flavours involved. Combined with the above part about the receptors and it's a major improvement.

For ice cream I would recommend a teaspoon of salt thoroughly dissolved in the mixture per batch. Fully dissolved it will not put a salty taste to it (or even if it does, might make for a nice little bonus) but will enhance the flavour a lot.

[thansal]

See, the freezing temp thing is actually a concern for me. The base that I'm using now is actually a REALLY good consistency, and I don't want to mess with that, however, I still want to make a try at it.

Ye Gods.

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

I want to make that now.

I have had Salted caramel Gelato (at Grom), and I now REALLY want to try this out. Getting the consistency is gonna be a major problem....


Oh, random note:
I fully understand the glory that is salt. I can't stand salty food, however the addition of just a bit of salt to just about ANYTHING makes it taste light years better. The really screwy one I saw once was my mum using just a bit of salt on bread instead of butter, it really brought out the flavor of the bread (And with out any fat).

[dalesys]

I fully understand the glory that is salt.

My mother always made our bread from scratch. (It isn't real bread unless it's crumby!) A few times a year her fresh out of the oven hot buttered slices would result in a table surrounded by cat-butt faces...


Don't forget the salt!

[AccountingDrone]

My dream ice cream is green tea with candied ginger chunks and swirls of red bean paste ... *sigh* which nobody ever makes, and I can't afford to buy it from a custom blend ice creamery and we do not have an ice cream maker, and seeing I am diabetic, we probably will never make ice cream.

[Ghel]

I got an ice cream maker as a housewarming gift about 4 years ago. I make mostly simple recipes, but I thought I'd share a couple that I really liked.

Cherry Garcia
My take on this used the basic vanilla recipe, with the addition of chocolate chips and canned cherries. My ice cream maker doesn't stir if I add anything too big, so I ended up using mini chocolate chips and chopped up the cherries.

Dreamsicle
This was also the basic vanilla recipe, but I added a teaspoon of orange extract in addition to the vanilla extract, plus I added chopped canned mandarin oranges. After this one was done, I realized I didn't really need to chop the oranges, since they fell apart very quickly when stirred into the ice cream.

The chai tea ice cream sounds really good. I may try that next.

[Kogarashi]

But salt will energize the sweet and sour receptors on the tongue while at the same time block the bitter receptors. The result is desired tastes are more pronounced while less desirable ones are shut out, making the food taste better.

This is actually why so many canned foods are salted. It blocks the bitter flavors that occur from the commercial canning and (re-)emphasizes the desired flavors of whatever is in the can.

As for putting salt on odd things, I have yet to drum up my courage to eat grapefruit with salt like my dad does, rather than drowning it in sugar as is my personal preference.

Dangit, now I want to make ice cream, but we have no room in our freezer for the cannister to our machine at the moment.

[thansal]

Dreamsicle
This was also the basic vanilla recipe, but I added a teaspoon of orange extract in addition to the vanilla extract, plus I added chopped canned mandarin oranges. After this one was done, I realized I didn't really need to chop the oranges, since they fell apart very quickly when stirred into the ice cream.

That's actually fairly high on my list of ones to try as I do have a deep love for creamsicles, I just need to get some orange extract :P


hmmm, I do have some almond extract, almond icecream might be nice.

Ghel, out of curiosity, what is your basic Vanilla recipe?

My dream ice cream is green tea with candied ginger chunks and swirls of red bean paste ... *sigh* which nobody ever makes, and I can't afford to buy it from a custom blend ice creamery and we do not have an ice cream maker, and seeing I am diabetic, we probably will never make ice cream.

If you are willing to experiment (and have a food processor) there are a couple of recipes out there that don't need an ice cream maker, and might even be more diabetic friendly (I don't actually know if this is true).

The main one I know is generally touted as one ingredient (or 2) ice cream, and it consists of chopping up some bananas, laying them out on a baking sheet, freezing them, and then putting them through a food processor. It takes a while, but it yields something you really wouldn't think was dairy free. The 2nd ingredient is anything you want, so in your case it would be Matcha, and then some candied ginger folded in, and possibly just topped with red bean paste :P.

If you really wanted to go crazy you could even experiment making red bean paste with more diabetic sugars (agave iirc?)

My mum has a thing for making this stuff after I told her about it, and she tends to add a bit of milk to the mix to get the texture just as she likes.

[KiaKat]

For those people interested in working with boozamahol, know this - alcohol lowers the freezing temp, so it likely won't work as well. Try creating a reduction to lower the percentage below 20. This will work best with liqueurs, like Root (the same infusions as in root beer/sarsaparilla) or Cointreau (orange liqueur). Another option is to make a granita with Prosecco or a white wine. Yum.

If you don't already have them, get the Simply Organic extracts. Most of them (except the vanilla) are oil-based, so they'll mix with the cream a bit better, and won't do weird things to the eggs.

[thansal]

You mean to tell me that there is alcoholic Root beer out there? I am intrigued and must go to a decent liquor store some time soon.

The first one I made actually had a bit of rum in it, I was a bit leery (due to the lowering of freezing point), but it worked out fine. A friend made a chocolate/banana concoction (similar to 1 ingredient ice cream, but more complex) that had a LOT of rum in it, I suspect that it was the bananas that let it keep it's consistency there.

As for making a reduction of alcohol do you mean simply boiling off some of the alcohol before using it?

[Kittish]

As for making a reduction of alcohol do you mean simply boiling off some of the alcohol before using it?

Yep, that's exactly what that means, but you don't want to get a full, rolling boil. More like a simmer, tiny little bubbles coming up around the edges, and hold it there til the volume of your liquid has decreased by however much you want.

Hmm, ice cream. I'm extraordinarily picky about ice cream, and I've never had homemade ice cream that I enjoyed the texture of. It always feels funky in my mouth, not smooth like commercial stuff. I also insist that my ice cream be frozen so hard that it takes picks and stuff to get it out of the container, and won't eat it if it's going at all soft.

For orange extract, you can sort of make your own quickie at home without any alcohol. Just get a couple of oranges and remove the zest with a vegetable peeler or a paring knife and be careful about trimming off any of the white part underneath. You can use a zester if you have one and like using them; I don't care for them personally, makes a HUGE mess and you wind up losing a lot of the oils from the zest.

Then, take your zest and run it thru a food processor or blender or just chop it up really fine by hand if you have the patience for that, and toss it into your ice cream base and let it steep a while, to pull out the oils from the zest. I did that in place of lemon extract for a lemon cake I made not too long ago, and it worked fabulously. Use about one tablespoon of minced/pureed zest per teaspoon of extract called for.

How about a lime ice cream? I make a lime curd (think thick, spreadable pudding) that is absolutely marvelous, and the flavor would probably carry over well in ice cream.

[thansal]

Lime is on the list once I figure out how I want to make fruit ice creams.

My first 2 thoughts were either just letting the zest steep in the base, or making a citrus/alcohol concoction (simmer citrus rind in brandy or something), however I'm actually leaning in the direction of being lazy and grabbing some extracts.

Once I have that worked out to my liking the next step is Ginger Lime (2 of my favorite flavors).

The other thought is a mint/lime sorbet, but first I have to start figuring out basic fruit sorbets :P

[lordlundar]

As for putting salt on odd things, I have yet to drum up my courage to eat grapefruit with salt like my dad does, rather than drowning it in sugar as is my personal preference.

Try both, a thin coat of sugar and a light sprinkle of salt.

[Mytical]

Ok I know nothing about making homemade ice cream, but I have to say .. chocolate and peanutbutter ice cream? My absolute fave. *drools*

[AccountingDrone]

The main one I know is generally touted as one ingredient (or 2) ice cream, and it consists of chopping up some bananas, laying them out on a baking sheet, freezing them, and then putting them through a food processor. It takes a while, but it yields something you really wouldn't think was dairy free. The 2nd ingredient is anything you want, so in your case it would be Matcha, and then some candied ginger folded in, and possibly just topped with red bean paste :P.

If you really wanted to go crazy you could even experiment making red bean paste with more diabetic sugars (agave iirc?)

My mum has a thing for making this stuff after I told her about it, and she tends to add a bit of milk to the mix to get the texture just as she likes.

Carbs are just as important to diabetics as plain sugar [carbs break down into sugar ...] a portion of banana is half a banana, FWIW. That works out to about 3 tbsp of banana 'ice cream' I basically just don't even bother eating ice cream any longer. [and sugar is a texturizer in ice cream, it is difficult to make sugar free ice cream that doesn't have other chemicals/ingredients added as texturizers. Who knew working for US Foodservice would come in handy =)]