subject: 4th Of July Treats- Homemade Ice Cream [print this page] This 4th of July consider making your own ice cream instead of buying it from the store. Wouldn't you like to create versions of your favorite flavors or better yet, create your own flavors? Imagine you could make flavors that you don't see on store shelves like coffee ice cream with bits of chocolate covered coffee beans, key lime pie ice cream, vanilla bean white chocolate, pineapple and so on! Well, it's not harder than you think.
Electric ice cream makers are affordable, fun and easy to use and make great tasting ice cream. And what better time to make ice cream than for a 4th of July barbeque right in the middle of summer when it's nice and toasty. All you really need is a recipe which is easy to find, a few ingredients then you dump the ingredients in the ice cream maker bowl and voila, it freezes in about a half hour. That's it, not much to it.
So how much money are we talking about, where do I shop for electric ice cream makers and how do I know which one to buy? These are great questions. Good ice cream makers made for home kitchens can be as little as around $50 and up to around $500. You plug some into an outlet or you could buy an ice cream bowl attachment to place on an electric mixer, but if you don't already have an mixer you would have to buy that first. They come in different sizes usually from 1 quart to 2 quarts or different colors and styles like silver or white finishes. One of the most important features is the freezer bowl. This is where your ingredients go which freeze and become ice cream. Some are easier to work with than others with big wide openings, whereas the attachment has a smaller space in which to pour the ingredients through between the top edge of the bowl and the paddle attachment from the mixer.
My personal preference is the Cuisinart 2 quart Ice-30BC. It's got a big wide freezer bowl, which I place in the freezer overnight and has got an attractive stainless steel finish. The machine is relatively quiet when turned on and freezes the ingredients within 25 minutes for most recipes. I received 20% off at Bed, Bath and Beyond for being on their email list. So It came out to around $60. I am happy with that. You could order it online at various retailers like Amazon or Wal-Mart, but just factor in the shipping costs. I liked the fact I could have the machine immediately rather than waiting for it. I researched the reviews and liked everything I read. Whether you buy on the internet or at a store find a model that is sold at a store and go inspect it. You could also buy them used from someone on Amazon or Craigslist.org to save even more money, but I wanted a nice new machine that I could trust was clean. Many new machines give you free recipe books, which is a bonus, but there are great places online for ice cream maker recipes. I highly recommend investing in an eletric ice cream maker if you like to make your own treats from scratch. It will be one of the best investments in your kitchen- I promise!
