Have I ever told you that ice cream is one of my favorite foods? That I could eat it every day? That I only hesitatingly admit to, more than a couple-few times, eating a whole pint in one evening? That, as much as I like all desserts, at the end of a nice meal at a nice restaurant, no matter what’s on the dessert menu, I almost always order ice cream?
It’s sweet, it’s cold, it’s creamy, it’s refreshing. What more could you want?
And while I’d happily eat almost any ice cream—almost—homemade beats the pants off of store-bought. Because store-bought is typically full of gums and stabilizers to help it weather freezes and thaws but that keep it from tasting, well, simply delicious. As in this Chai Tea Ice Cream I made using my Basic Ice Cream recipe.
There really is a difference. And it’s one you can only appreciate by making ice cream for yourself.
Which isn’t bad news because homemade ice cream is really pretty easy. In fact, the hardest thing about making ice cream is having an ice cream maker (here’s a good one). It’ll cost about $65. And while that’s not nothing, I promise you’ll get more than $65 worth of happiness enjoying your ice cream. Plus saying “I made it myself!” to anyone who’ll listen.
(And even if you don’t have an ice cream maker, or want to test the homemade waters before committing yourself, there’s a workaround. See the note at the end of my Basic Ice Cream recipe.)
So then, making ice cream.
Most flavors will be a variation of basic vanilla, so that’s the place to start. It’s essentially a simple custard—milk and/or cream, egg yolks, and sugar—which you cook with a split and scraped vanilla bean or vanilla paste, infusing the flavor of the vanilla into the custard. (Yes, you could use vanilla extract but this is homemade ice cream—don’t you want pretty little flecks of vanilla and full vanilla flavor in it?) Then you chill that “base” mixture, then you process it in your ice cream maker (or using the workaround described in the recipe).
Voila.
Want to make mint ice cream? Instead of a vanilla, use fresh mint leaves, and infuse their flavor into the custard. Chai Tea Ice Cream? Use a few bags of chai tea. Basil ice cream? Yep—basil leaves. (Specific instructions for all of these variations—although they’d be easy enough to figure out—are included in the Basic Ice Cream recipe.)
Still pretty easy, right?
Fruit ice cream is one step more complicated—but only that. We’ll talk about it another time, and I’ll tell you about my experiments with a homemade version of Cherry Garcia, one of my favorite flavors ever.
Meanwhile, make some vanilla ice cream. Or chai tea. Or lavender.
And maybe even eat a whole pint.
Ice creams, sorbets, and other icy treats:
Basic Ice Cream (which includes the variation for making the Chai Tea Ice Cream picture here)
Basic Fruit Ice Cream
Cherry Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips
Rocky Road Ice Cream
Strawberry, Meyer Lemon, and Buttermilk Ice Cream
Orange Creamsicle Floats
Sparkling Wine Floats with Apricot-Vanilla Sauce
PB&J Ice Cream Sandwiches
Mexican Chocolate Granita
Berry Sorbet
Icy-Cool Wine Slushes
