Homemade ice cream is fresh, delicious and fun to make. What's more, you can customize your flavors or use the best-quality ingredients you can find. But it can be tricky to get ice cream to have that perfect firm, yet creamy consistency that is the trademark of good ice cream. Follow these tips to improve your own ice cream making technique.
Start With the Best Ingredients
Ice cream is only as good as the ingredients used to make it. So if you can afford it, buy organic milk and cream and free-range eggs, making sure that everything is as fresh as can be. If you're adding flavorings or ingredients, such as chocolate, vanilla or fruit, spring for high-quality products. For instance, real vanilla, or even actual vanilla beans, make far better vanilla ice cream than imitation vanilla.
Save Fat and Calorie Cutting for Later
If you're like most people, you try to watch what you eat and buy low-fat versions of cheese, milk and other foods. But ice cream depends on a high-fat content to create a creamy texture that won't get icy and gritty in the freezer. Once you get adept at making ice cream, you can experiment with using lower-fat milk products, such as half-and-half instead of heavy cream, but be aware that the texture and flavor won't be nearly as rich and delicious as a full-fat version. On a diet? Make ice cream an occasional treat, and serve yourself a smaller portion.
Know When to Add Flavorings
Flavorings, especially extracts or alcohol, should be added when the cooked custard has cooled. Don't add them to the custard when it's hot, or the flavors will deteriorate and won't be as pronounced. You could even wait to stir them in until right before you pour the ice cream base into the ice cream maker.
Thoroughly Chill the Custard
Many ice cream recipes call for making a cooked custard out of eggs, sugar, and milk. After you've made the custard, it's important to chill it in the refrigerator until it's as cold as possible before putting it into your ice cream maker. Some experts even recommend "aging" the mixture overnight in the refrigerator, which will enable the mixture to be aerated as much as possible in the maker, yielding the creamiest, smoothest ice cream.
Freeze the Bowl
Speaking of freezing, if you're using the type of ice cream maker that comes with a freezer bowl, make sure to freeze this bowl for at least 24 hours before making ice cream. If the bowl is not cold enough, chances are your ice cream will never freeze.
Start the Motor First
Particularly when using an ice cream maker with a freezer bowl, it's important to turn on the motor before pouring into the ice cream base. The bowl is so cold that the mixture will freeze immediately upon contact, so you'll want it to already be in motion so that the ice cream won't freeze onto the bowl in a chunk.
Use Mix-Ins Wisely
Adding candy pieces, nuts or dried or fresh fruit to your ice cream can add a whole new flavor and texture dimension. Mix-ins should be small, around the size of a chocolate chip, so the ice cream maker can incorporate them into the frozen ice cream. Chill them thoroughly before adding them to the ice cream, and only add them when the ice cream is already completely frozen. The ice cream maker won't need more than a minute or two to stir them in.
Keep It Creamy
A common complaint about homemade ice cream is that it gets hard and icy when it's stored in the freezer. There are several ways to keep your ice cream from freezing solid in the freezer. David Lebovitz, author of the book, The Perfect Scoop, recommends adding a few tablespoons of alcohol (such as a fruit liqueur to fruit-flavored ice cream, or vodka when you don't want an alcoholic flavor). Sugar, corn syrup or honey, as well as gelatin and commercial stabilizers, can all keep your ice cream at a softer consistency. Ice cream also stays softer when you store it in a shallow container, rather than a deep tub, and cover the surface of the ice cream with plastic wrap to keep ice crystals from forming.
With a little practice and some good recipes (whether it's classic Vanilla or an adventurous flavor like Ovaltine ice cream), you'll be well on your way to making delicious homemade ice cream that will delight your friends and family.
Strawberry Ice Cream Recipe
FAQs
When it comes to great ice cream, cold temperatures and speed are your friends: the faster you bring your base from liquid to solid, the creamier it'll be. In a 2-quart unit, a typical batch of ice cream will take between 18 and 25 minutes to churn.
How to make homemade ice cream creamy and not icy? ›
So you can up the fat in your ice cream by substituting cream for milk or half-and-half in recipes. Even more effective, is that you can also add more egg yolks if making a custard-based ice cream, which will increase the creaminess due to their emulsifying properties.
How to make homemade ice cream that stays soft in the freezer? ›
Sugar, corn syrup or honey, as well as gelatin and commercial stabilizers, can all keep your ice cream at a softer consistency. Ice cream also stays softer when you store it in a shallow container, rather than a deep tub, and cover the surface of the ice cream with plastic wrap to keep ice crystals from forming.
What makes the creamiest ice cream? ›
Ice cream's creaminess depends on the size of the ice crystals that form during freezing-the smaller the crystals, the creamier the texture. Rapid chilling and constant churning encourage the water in the ice cream mixture to form lots of minuscule “seed” crystals; this process is known as propagation.
What is the best sugar for homemade ice cream? ›
Most home ice cream recipes call for simple table sugar, which is chemically known as sucrose. But in pro kitchens you have more options. Liquid sugars like invert sugar, corn syrup, honey, and glucose syrup all add body, creaminess, and stability to ice cream, and a little goes a long way.
What can I add to homemade ice cream to make it thicker? ›
Adding thickening agents, such as egg yolks, cornstarch, gelatin, tapioca starch, or even Junket tablets, enhances the texture and elevates the overall ice cream experience. Remember, making homemade ice cream is as much an art as it is a science.
What ingredient makes ice cream not freeze solid? ›
Sugar makes the ice cream soft
This is because salt considerably reduces the temperature at which water freezes. So instead of your driveway getting icy at zero degrees centigrade, it will stay ice-free. The same principle is at work in ice cream, but we use sugar instead of salt because it's much tastier.
How to stop ice crystals in homemade ice cream? ›
Chill Your Base Well
The initial mixture should be very cold before it hits the ice-cream machine; ideally, you'll want to refrigerate it overnight. It'll need less churning time this way, and that will keep ice crystals from snowballing.
Why should we not drink water after eating ice cream? ›
No. You can drink water after eating ice cream. Its a common myth and the reason behind it might the fact that if we drink water immediately after eating ice cream, there will be a fluctuation in temperature (due to temperature difference in water and ice cream).
How to tell when homemade ice cream is done? ›
You know your ice cream is done churning when it gets to the consistency of soft-serve. It'll set up the rest of the way once it's in the freezer.
The standard temperature for the freezer is around zero degrees. The problem with this is that it's actually too cold for scooping ice cream. The high butterfat and lack of air in most good-quality ice creams make them very hard at zero degrees.
What is the best stabilizer for ice cream? ›
Xanthan gum (E415)
This bacterial exopolysaccharide is obtained by the growth of Xanthom*onas campestris in culture. Its blend with guar gum and/or locust bean gum makes an effective stabilizer for ice cream, ice milk, sherbet, and water ices. Hydrates cold.
What to add to homemade ice cream to keep it soft? ›
By binding with liquids, sugar molecules prevent an ice cream base from fully freezing into crunchy ice. That is, the more sugar you add, the softer and less icy your batch will be. The kind of sugar you add also matters.
What makes a perfect ice cream? ›
A great ice cream owes its smooth, creamy mouthfeel to fat, which helps keep ice crystals small. As Bauer explains, fat is also extraordinarily effective at carrying flavors, so when ice cream melts in your mouth, you are hit with the taste of your ingredients.
What are the 3 most important ingredients of ice cream? ›
If you have ever made ice cream, you already know what goes into it, ingredients such as milk, cream, and sugar. But there is one main ingredient that you may not have thought about, probably because you can't see it—air.
What makes ice cream taste better? ›
Just the right amount of sugar—or a combination of different types of sugars—keeps the ice cream scoop-able. Fat is responsible for helping to create the rich, creamy, and smooth texture that we love. Some artisan ice cream makers use very high percentages of fat.
How do you select the highest quality of ice cream? ›
The one metric that grocers and the dairy industry use to determine the quality of ice cream is overrun, which, in the simplest terms, is how much air is in your ice cream. The lower the overrun, the lower the air content, and the better the quality of ice cream.
