Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Making Ice Cream Using An Electric Ice Cream Maker - Tips To Make It Great

By Mia Kane

My friends are always asking me is it cheaper to make your own ice cream or buy it. As well as lots of other benefits, yes it can also be cheaper. That's up to you.

For me it's always been cheaper to make, that was one of the key considerations. My kids eat ice cream several times a week, even in winter. I use all sorts of things. I use left over fruit, frozen fruit and even tinned fruit, or a combination of all of the above.

Picking free seasonal fruit like blackberries and blueberries helps, but I know not everyone can do this, so I just buy frozen, or when I see a good deal on fresh fruit, buy it and freeze it myself.

Frozen and tinned fruit work fine. Whether you put them through the mixture or serve on the side or top of the ice cream. Drain off the juice from the can if you want to keep it lower fat. Here's some other things that will help your ice cream.

1. Once your ice cream has defrosted, do not re freeze. The texture will be awful, and there is also a danger of food poisoning.

2. I like to make my ice cream manually, when making it with the kids. It's a great way to get them involved, especially if they have friends around. They love the result and their friends always get some to bring home to show off. However, in general because I make it so often, I use an electric ice cream maker. Pain free, and consistently good results.

3. Remember that home made ice cream will not have all the preservatives that store bought has in it. This means that it will not last as long. So try to use within a couple of weeks in the freezer.

4. It's best not to serve your ice cream too cold. It can give you brain freeze, but also takes away from the flavor because it's just too cold to taste properly. Take out of the freezer for about 10 minutes before you dive in.

5. Keep left over chocolate and biscuits, freeze them, they can be used for choc chip ice cream, but also you can just crumble biscuits over the top.

6. Warning! Blueberries when frozen come out like little pellets, so don't put them in whole, crush them before adding them to any mixture, or better still, just serve them with the ice cream.

Making ice cream at home yourself is so rewarding. The end taste is great, you know what you have put into it, and you can make any type of flavor you want. The kids love getting involved. I like to bring ice cream around to friends' houses for dinner, we usually have for dessert on the night.

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