I learnt the basic principles of ice cream making when I did a course at Leiths a few years ago, and picked up some great tips and recipes. However I rarely dabbled at home due to the lack of ice cream maker.
It’s one of those kitchen gadgets I never quite dared to purchase as it felt like a slippery slope. Freshly made ice cream on tap surely leads to instant obesity?!
Well I held fast until I was given an ice cream maker by the Appliance Fairy – I kid you not! I happened to be on Fuss Free Flavours blog where the Fairy from Appliances Online was residing, left a comment about wanting a dishwasher… and ended up with an ice cream maker instead.
It’s a Kenwood IM200 which is a pretty cheap model that’s readily available, and it’s neat and compact for cramming into your gadget cupboard.
The first thing I tried making was frozen yoghurt. I just poured a whole 500g pot of Mango and Passionfruit yoghurt into the machine, and 20 minutes later I got smooth and creamy frozen yoghurt. I was shocked at just how quick it was to make.
Next stop, ice cream.
We’re all pretty united on our favourite flavour in this house – it has to be mint choc chip. I wasn’t entirely convinced I’d be able to recreate it at home, but thought it was worth a go.
There are four basic types of ice cream bases to which you add your desired flavours:
- Custard
- Mousse parfaits
- Meringue
- Yoghurt
I opted for a custard-based type and in shameless corner-cutting style I picked up two pots of ready-made custard in Waitrose. If you wanted to keep the costs down or if you’re lucky enough to be blessed with time you could of course make your own!
I used fresh mint in a sugar syrup to flavour the custard, and found some fantastic after-dinner type wafer thin chocolates with crunchy mint bits in to cut up for the choc chip element.
It was all a bit of an experiment but turned out a dream. The boys were mad for it – Sam loved helping me make it and everyone enjoyed eating it! It was fresh without being sickly and the crunchy mint chocolate bits were pretty heavenly.
All in all I’m pretty blinking chuffed with my efforts.
Mint choc chip ice cream
(makes 1 litre)
50g caster sugar
100ml water
1 handful of fresh mint, very finely chopped
1 litre fresh custard
100g dark chocolate, chopped into chunks – after dinner crunchy mint thins are ideal
1. Heat the sugar and water in a pan until it’s dissolved to make a syrup. Leave to cool and then stir in the finely chopped mint leaves.
2. Pour the custard into a large mixing bowl and gradually add the minty syrup stirring well. Then stir in the chocolate pieces. Tip your mixture into your ice cream maker and churn until the desired consistency is achieved.
The churning is vital for a creamier texture, so even though an ice-cream maker is not essential, it makes life easier and the quality a lot finer.
For total perfection ice cream should be eaten the day it is made – but a few days’ freezing should be fine. It never seems to last very long in this house anyway! If it has frozen absolutely solid it’s best to leave it in the fridge for half an hour before serving it.
So having given the ice cream maker a bit of a road test I’d say
Positives:
- Small enough to fit in a cupboard
- A bargain at £23.99 on Amazon
- Does the business in superquick time
- Perfect for getting the kids involved in cooking as they could invent their own flavour combinations
Negatives:
- Once the ice cream starts to thicken up and the mixing paddle is fighting to get through the mixture, the lid of the machine actually came loose and I ended up having to hold it down.
- You have to keep the bowl in the freezer 24 hours before using it. This is fine for me as I have a large enough freezer to keep it in there permanently, but others might find this annoying.
- It’s a bit tricky to clean.
I’m not sure if the fairy is still granting wishes, but why not leave a comment telling me what you would like and you never know! It does not have to be things that appliances online sell, such as cookers and fridge freezers. When the appliance fairy sees a wish she would like to grant you will get an e-mail from her.
Good Luck!
Thanks to Appliances Online for sending me the ice cream maker… I wonder if they’ll pay for a personal trainer to counteract the adverse calorific effects??!!
I love that it’s not flourescent green and you used real mint. I’ll be giving this a go if I ever get that ice-cream maker of my own. And ginger ice cream, mango sorbet, lemon sorbet….
Yes I like the natural look of it too. You really need an ice cream maker in your life 🙂
Mmmmint. This sounds amazingly easy, I always thought ice cream was impossible to make, and it looks delicious too! Sam and Arlo are some very lucky boys!
Sharron it’s criminally easy… swing by for a cone!
Kate you will need to start growing your own mint. can just envisage fresh strawberry ice-cream, blackberry, raspberry as all the fresh fruit seasons come around…yum yum yum.
an ice-cream maker is a gadget I have toyed with to enable me to make dairy free ice-cream and sorbet in a nut free environment , but dont eat that much of either so never seen the point in spending the money.
But if the appliance fairy is looking for people to grant wishes to, mine isn’t big or overly expensive, I would love a yoghurt maker, as the soya yoghurt has increased hugely in price and I could start making my own more simply with a yoghurt maker. Made some yesterday using the slow cooker method ( needs a bit of tweaking) and will probably blog about that later once its tweaked a bit.
Ooh yes growing my own is def on the agenda as we got an allotment recently… Watch this space!
yep, my allotment under way too
I know we’ve already spoken about this on twitter but I’m here to drool! It looks amazing and mint choc chip is a fave in our house too. I’ve considered getting an ice cream maker but I hadn’t realised about having to keep the bowl in the freezer for a while beforehand, no good for us, our freezer is tiny!
Thanks for swinging by Sian 🙂 it’s certainly not built for small freezers where every inch is precious!
Wow, that ice cream looks really impressive, even for someone who doesn’t like ice cream nor mint choc chip – ha ha! I like the idea of the frozen yoghurt though and sounds easy enough for my teens to do on their own so might consider getting one.
If the appliance fairy is reading and in a good mood, my washing machine is leaking terribly all over my kitchen floor and I know it’s time for it to go to the big appliance graveyard in the sky to wash and spin to its heart’s content. I would like to replace it with another Bosch as I have always found them the best and I do LOADS of washing. The WAS28461GB would be my ultimate choice. Thank you.
The frozen yoghurt is delicious… The kids would love it 🙂 sorry to hear about your leaky washing machine…
Fabulous, what a great gadget, well worth the shelf room. Frozen yoghurt reminds me of your time in the US!I do hope we are going to have plenty of “ice cream” weather this year, it seems to have returned to winter up here in Shropshire!
Hehe yes chocolate frozen yoghurt on tap at mealtimes at college in Illinois was definitely memorable!!!!
Mmmm, I can heartily recommend Delia’s recipe for rhubarb crumble ice-cream if you fancy trying another seasonal treat. I’m just to whip up some flapjacks to feed some runners tomorrow, so dropped by your site for your recipe. My wish is for a Kitchen Aid, with a proper glass jug blender. Oh and for someone to realise that the dishwasher doesn’t have an automatic empty button!
rhubarb crumble ice cream sounds like a total winner Michelle – will certainly be trying that out with some of my allotment rhubarb! Hope the flapjacks turned out okay. xxx
hello. i LOVE our ice cream maker, it really is life changing. I bought it for hubbie for birthday (at his insistence, I thought it would just clutter up our cupboards) and we have ice cream or sorbet at least once a week! Sorbets are really easy and quite healthy (or so I tell myself!). Glad the joys of ice cream makers are being shared!
Lol! I need to head over to your blog for some recipe inspiration… It’s such a great little gadget and will keep my family well happy over the summer. Really excited about trying out the infinite flavour possibilities…