Make your own ice cream

"I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream." -- Heywood C. Broun, American writer.

Broun may be right, but purists contend that the first taste of homemade ice cream might surpass your first ice cream adventure. Making your own ice cream takes a little more fuss than the supermarket variety, but the results are worth it.

What's the difference between homemade and commercial ice cream?
MacKay's Cochrane Ice Cream has been a destination spot for Calgary and area gourmet ice cream lovers for nearly 60 years. “Cochrane ice cream is still made by hand in very small volumes at a time,” says Megan Van Ham, general manager for MacKay's Cochrane Ice Cream Ltd. “We believe that smaller volumes mean better quality control.”Making your own ice cream means you have the ultimate quality control. You can decide on the ingredient proportions, adding fruit, pecans, or chocolate as you like.

“We still see vanilla as being the most popular flavour,” says Van Ham. “The basic flavours -- vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, maple walnut -- continue to be the best sellers.” But ice cream lovers aren't limited to the basics, especially when they're making it themselves, resulting in flavours like cookies and cream, chocolate fudge chunk, and tropical mango.

Making ice cream: Tools you'll need
You can make ice cream by simply using freezer trays or manual hand-crank ice cream makers, but today's ice-cream lover will appreciate the ease of an electric ice cream machine.

You'll also need: a saucepan, a sieve (for straining seeds from berry mixtures), freezer storage containers, a whisk, and an ice cream scoop.

Ingredients
Cream and milk – Homemade ice cream is made with a mixture of cream and milk. You can change the ratio of cream to milk, but that will affect the taste and texture of the ice cream.

“We don't have low-fat ice cream,” says Van Ham. “We recommend people have one ice cream as a splurge and really, really enjoy it.” High fat content adds to the texture and flavour. "Low-fat ice cream won't hold together as well, the texture won't be as smooth and creamy, and it won't last as long on the cone.”

Sugar – Ice cream is sweetened with sugar, honey, or syrup. During the first step of making ice cream, the sugars are dissolved through heating and/or beating. Sugar lowers the freezing point of the mixture, meaning the ice cream will never freeze completely solid. The sweetness of sugar decreases with freezing, so the final product may taste different than it did in its unfrozen state.

Eggs – Eggs improve the texture of ice cream by suspending the milk fat globules, resulting in a creamier, richer final product. Emulsifying agents are typically added to commercial ice creams instead of eggs.

Air – An essential part of the process, air is trapped in the mixture as the ice cream maker churns, causing it to increase in volume. Commercial ice creams are as much as 50 percent air; homemade ice cream has much less air, which can lead to a superior tasting product.

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Flavourings – The sky is the limit when choosing flavourings to add to ice cream, but some choices might alter the texture and taste of the finished product.

Some fruit contains a high percentage of water and natural sugar, which can dilute the ice cream. You can counter this by increasing the cream content (over milk), which acts by increasing the fat globules in the ice cream. Fruits like raspberries have a low sugar content and you might wish to add more sugar to compensate; high-sugar fruits like bananas may not require as much sugar to be added. Use fresh and in-season fruits whenever you can for more intensely flavoured ice cream.

Flavours aren't as intense when frozen so use concentrated flavours. For example, if you want to add orange taste to ice cream use concentrated orange rather than the diluted orange juice. When adding chunky items -- like chocolate or candies -- to ice cream, add them towards the end of the freezing process to avoid finding all the chunks at the bottom of the ice cream.

“And use good pure cocoa when making chocolate ice cream,” recommends Van Ham. “Don't use a hot chocolate drink mix.”

Serving tips
-Homemade ice cream tastes best right after it comes out of the ice cream machine, but it scoops better after it's been in the freezer for about four hours.

-Soften the ice cream in the fridge or on the counter for a few minutes before scooping.

-Dip the ice cream scoop in cold water before scooping to get a neater scoop.

Storage tips
-Store ice cream at between –5 and 0F.

-Tightly cover ice cream during storage to avoid the ice cream absorbing flavours from other foods. It's a good idea to cover the ice cream with wax paper or parchment before you put the lid on it -- this helps reduce the formation of ice crystals.

-Don't refreeze melted ice cream. The texture will be compromised and you'll end up with a product that will be gooey or covered with ice crystals.

-Store ice cream in the body of the freezer -- the freezer door isn't cold enough.

-The texture of the ice cream left in the container changes every time you take it out. With that in mind, you've got two options: eat it in short order, or decant the ice cream from the ice cream machine into several small containers.

-Commercial ice creams have stabilizers added to them to increase their freezer life; homemade ice cream should be eaten within 2 to 3 days of preparation. To experiment, taste a mouthful of homemade ice cream every day over a week or so and notice the difference in taste and texture.

Did you know?
-In 1988 Palm Dairies (Alberta) set a world record for the largest ice cream sundae in the world -- the ice cream weighed 44,689 pounds, 8 ounces and was topped with 9,688 pounds of syrup and 537 pounds of topping.

-According to the International Ice Cream Association, Sunday is the best day for ice cream sales.

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Click here for a basic vanilla ice cream recipe you can try at home.


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