Recently I bought an ice cream machine and have been experimenting with making my own ice cream at home. It's perfect for the hot weather we've been having recently, not to mention it's healthier than ones bought from the shops. Making my own ice cream can reduce some of the guilt when eating it now!!!
I'm still trying out different recipes; everyone seems to have a different ratio of double cream and milk. They form the base of the ice cream. Sugar is an essential ingredient, I learnt you have to have it to get the creamy texture otherwise it becomes grainy and you end up with a big chunk of ice. The trick is to see how little I can add to still get the creamy ice cream texture and not make it too sweet and unhealthy. Then there's the flavour. I made the box standard vanilla first with vanilla essence, that was easy. Then I decided to experiment with other flavours. Pastacchio, because I had a big jar of paste at home. And dulce de leche, which came all the way from Argentina, a gift from @lauramica when we met last year. I've been trying to find a way to use it, now is the perfect opportunity. Thanks Laura!!!
Making the ice cream base is quite a messy business. There was nearly a one-litre of liquid and it was splashing everywhere, including over me. I'm sure kids will love this process.
Unlike other ice cream makers where you make one big tub, mine makes small 240ml tubs. That works great for me because I can make different flavours at the same time. The machine comes with 3 x 240ml tubs; they are the ones on the right below. Separately, I bought 6 x 200ml pots. Each time I make a big batch of ice cream base, I fill up the nine pots and freeze them all.
When I want to eat my ice cream, I take one of the 240ml tubs out from the freezer, attach it to the bottom of the blade and let it do its magic. Well, the magic doesn't actually happen by itself. I have to push the mixer down slowly for it to churn the ice cream base. That only takes a few minutes, and hey presto, freshly make healthy home made ice cream is ready.
The beauty of all this is we can be greedy and have two flavours at the same time. The one on the left is the dulce de leche, and the right is pistachio. Yummy. Although these are small 240ml tubs, they're more than enough for one person. The Häagen-Dazs small tubs are only 95ml, I have more than double here.
When I finish the three tubs, I transfer the other 200ml ones over because I have to use the original tubs to churn the ice cream. This whole process works great for me so far. The only downside with this is the cleaning. Before I bought the machine, I read online and people were saying it's difficult to clean the mixer. Now I understand why. It says not to submerge the unit into water, but it's difficult to clean the blade when it's hidden in the compartment. You can only get it out by pushing it downwards and when you don't have the top handle part, it's difficult to keep it out to clean.
We've sort of got round this problem by slipping a tong in between and cleaning it that way. It's a little fiddly, but it works so far. The extra effort is worth it!! Time to grab another ice cream to cool me down!
