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July is National Ice Cream Month
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Equipment
Types of Ice Cream
Recipes
 Whilst
Recipes4us is essentially a British
site, as we are a nation of ice cream lovers, we think the rest of
the world should adopt this US National month so we've dedicated a whole page on
it.
This isn't an age-old National Month in America.
In fact, it was President Ronald Regan (1981-1989) who designated July as
National Ice Cream Month and further, that the third Sunday of July be National
Ice Cream Day.
Equipment
It's not difficult to make ice cream at home and you don't have to have an ice
cream maker either although they do make an easy job even easier.
Well, it depends on what recipe you're using. You must have a freezer or freezer
compartment in your fridge. For many you can get away with a mixing bowl, sieve,
freezer proof container and utensils like a wooden spoon. For others you can add
to that list a saucepan and a blender or food processor.
A word about Ice Cream Machines
I admit to having one! Being a kitchen gadget freak, I bought a very basic ice
cream maker many years ago. It's the type where you freeze the bowl beforehand
then attach the motorised paddle before adding the ice cream mixture which is
then churned for about 20 minutes.
The drawback of these simple machines is that you have to pre-freeze the bowls
for a few hours. Also they tend to be quite small, only making enough ice cream
to serve 4-6 people BUT the resulting mixture is very smooth and much lighter
than if it wasn't used so it's worth it.
If you only make ice cream occasionally, these are the machines for you as they
are relatively compact and cheap.
If you want to go the whole hog, there are some very fancy machines on the
market which are more or less, automatic and only need to be turned on 5-10
minutes beforehand because they have their own freezing units built in.
They are more expensive, but if you want to be able to eat your home made ice
cream within 30 minutes of having had the idea to make it, these are the ones
for you.
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Types of Ice Cream
The two traditional types of ice cream recipes are ones made with an egg-custard
base and ones made with cream as the base but there are now many variations
which stray from these including ones using yoghurt, evaporated milk, crème
frâiche and tofu - the letter being ideal for vegans. There are a few examples
of all these types of ice creams listed below.
Cream based ice creams are the easiest as basically, they are just cream with
added flavourings in the form of chocolate, fruit etc. However, although custard
based ice creams involve more "cooking", they have the advantage that they can
be adapted to contain less calories by substituting milk (including skimmed) for
the cream.. They also tend to have a lighter, softer texture.
The nice thing about home made ice cream is that you can adjust the flavourings
to suit your own tastes. So, if you like the taste of honey, for example, you
can substitute it for some of the sugar content.
Just as an aside, this brings to mind the story of a chef we have in England who
serves unusual dishes at his restaurant (The Fat Duck in Bray) including
Bacon and Egg Ice cream! May sound weird but that restaurant has been
voted one of the best places to eat in the world.
Below are just a few of the many ice cream and sorbet recipes on this site plus
some recipes for sauces and other accompaniments to serve with your home made
ice cream including meringue cases and Tuilles, a light biscuit, which also help
to use up the leftover egg whites from custard-based recipes.
Happy Ice Cream making!
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Ice Cream recipes
Strawberry Yoghurt Ice cream
Tofu Chocolate Ice Cream
Mango Evaporated Milk Ice Cream
Cinnamon Plum Ice Cream
Honey Ice Cream
Cardamom Ice Cream
Vanilla Ice Cream
Crème Frâiche Ice Cream
Apricot Ice Cream
Loganberry Ripple Ice Cream
Fresh Mint Ice Cream
Strawberry Ice Cream
Accompaniments
Chocolate Sauce
Dessert Fig Sauce
Bilberry Sauce
Toffee Sauce
Tuilles
Meringue Nests
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