This item is about using your ice cream maker.

12 responses total.

I've got an electric ice cream maker.  My son and I have tried making 
ice cream in it several times, from recipes available on the Internet, 
but I've found I always get this rock-solid brick resembling a thick 
popsickle more than ice cream.

This week we made coffee ice cream. (He loves coffee.)  It came out 
thin and slushy from the ice cream maker, then when I put it in the 
freezer, it froze hard and ice-like.  It's not in any way creamy like 
ice cream should be.

Any ideas about what I'm doing wrong?

The recipe I used was this one:
http://www.sendicecream.com/coffeeicecream.html

How long did you cook it.  A custard base (which this is) needs to cook long
enough for it to thicken to the point where it "coats" a spoon, i.e. when you
are stirring it, you pull the spoon out and the back of the spoon remains
coated, it doesn't all run off.  Frankly, I am surprised that you don't add
the half and half before cooking, as a normal custard is milk or cream, eggs,
sugar, and flavoring.

I would try making it again, making sure it is thick enough.  If that doesn't
work, try adding some of the cream before cooking and cook until thick, or
look for a different recipe.  I would also leave it in the machine until it
reached the consistancy I wanted.

What kind of icecream maker did you get:  ice+salt or shell-in-the-freezer?

Shell in the freezer.  Which kind is better?

I'll try again and cook it thicker.  If it was as thick as ice cream 
should be in the ice cream maker, the paddle wouldn't be able to turn, 
would it?

The paddle is supposed to whip air into the mix, but the mix has to be
somewhat thick enough for that to work.

I actually had very good luck with the freezer type ice cream maker.  Thick
is a relative term.

If you cook custard, the traditional metric is "coats the spoon". By that they
mean that at first the custard is thin, like milk, but as it gets thicker it
gets more viscous, and leaves a fairly thick film on the spoon if you take
a spoonful out of the pot, and pour it back.  

To thick, and the machine clogs up.

It's been a long time, but when I was growing up, we used ice+salt ice
cream makers, both hand- and electric-cranked.  In both cases, the machine
cranked until the ice cream was thick enough to stop the crank.

How does a in-the-freezer maker work?

In the freezer, you put a cylindrical pan which has some sort of 
solution embedded in it's sides.  It gets (and stays) cold.  Once it's 
been frozen for a few days, you put the ingredients for ice cream in 
it, then put it in a gizmo that spins it around while a plastic paddle 
sticks inside of it.  Think of a washing machine where the machine 
turns instead of the agitator.

This is more pleasant than using a hand-cranked ice and salt ice cream 
maker, unless you are an endurance conditioning nut.

I thought it was a lot of fun to crank ice cream, which I did once at a party.
What you need is a crowd.  Jim thinks it is good fun to grind flour.  He takes
a shower afterwards.  We both turned down the stress test at our recent
physical exam - I asked if you need a stress test when you have no trouble
biking 40 miles a day for 2 weeks with a 50 pound load.  If you don't avoid
physical exercise in daily life, you will be healthier.

(I'd say you're overqualified for a stress test.  ;-)

When manually cranking ice cream, a crowd is nice.  However, when you 
want to make just a quart of ice cream with your son, and don't have a 
crowd handy, an electric ice cream maker is an acceptable substitute.

Re 11 - I agree.  Re 10 - the doctor also tried to talk us into cholesterol
tests.  Jim does not eat any cholesterol (except at lectures in cookies) and
he tested himself once (before going vegan) at off the scale, and repeated
the test but read the instructions wrong and a thin red line went up to 125.
He does not care if this is high or low density.  He said we were treated as
statistical groups - men over 50 have high cholesterol.  Women over 50 are
sedentary and overweight.  We are getting a complete blood count instead -
it will be interesting to know the meaning of the items I have been
translating.  Jim qualifies as overweight - the statistics also assume that
most body weight is fat not muscle.

Back to ice cream (which Jim bought me so I would gain back ten pounds but
somehow it ended up on him.)

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