Making homemade ice cream is easy and fun! Get all the tips and tricks you need here, along with ice cream maker recommendations and recipes.
WANT TO SAVE THIS RECIPE?
Enter your email below and we'll send it straight to your inbox. Plus you’ll get great new recipes from us every week!
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! I swear, ice cream is one of those things that can be eaten any time of day or night, and no matter how harsh the weather outside may be.
While it’s nice to cool off on a hot summers day, any mother knows that it tastes just as great at 2am during a pregnancy craving.
Making homemade ice cream and keeping it on hand can help to reduce the trips to the store and save you a million bucks by not needing to flag down the ice cream truck outside.
Is it just me or have those prices tripled in the past few years? Yikes.
Thankfully ice cream makers were invented for lazy and cheap people like us. Not only does homemade ice cream save you money, but it allows you the creativity of making your own blends of flavors AND it’s a lot easier to make than you might have thought.
Listed below are some easy homemade ice cream recipes that you will no doubt love and want to try (I know enjoy several of them!)
But before we get to that I wanted to cover a few quick tips, tricks, and questions you might have. The more you know before jumping into a recipe the better and more confident you’ll be about it, right?
So first thing is first, is an ice cream maker worth it?
Absolutely. While there are a number of expensive and fancy ice cream makers on the market, if you’re new to this you may want to stick with a more affordable model.
Not only can making your own ice cream save you money but it can also be made much healthier, creamier, and flavorful than store-bought varieties.
What is the best ice cream maker to use?
Finding the right ice cream maker for you and your aspiring creamy dreams is a personal search that you should think long and hard about.
If you’re looking for something that can handle more than just ice cream, such as gelato or frozen yogurt, or if you’re looking for a larger or smaller one, you should take all of that into consideration.
You should also think about where you’d be using this appliance and if you want it to operate on battery, manual, or electric as that can make a difference too.
Being able to take a manual ice cream maker camping is a fun way to cool off under the sun, but if you plan on staying home for all future uses, plugging it in might be more of your style.
Note that having kids do manual labor to make ice cream can be fun and educational but be expected to pick up on the work where they leave off when they lose interest after a few minutes.
What are some ice cream machines to consider?
The ice cream maker I use and love is the Cuisinart 1.5 quart model. The amounts listed in the linked recipes fit in this size of an ice cream and serve about 4 people. It is easy to use and works great! No ice or salt needed.
Nostalgia Ice Cream Maker. This maker can handle a variety of work and looks like an older style ice cream churn. It comes from a reputable company that makes all kinds of fun kitchen gadgets and it’s under $50. Pretty great deal.
Rolled ice cream is fun and unique. This Sweet Spot Ice Cream Maker will help you to bring Cold Stone into your home and give you a fun ice cream making experience. It also allows for easier storage than a larger more bulky machine.
If you’re looking for a quality machine that is worth every penny, then the Cuisinart ICE-30BC is it. With a little heavier price tag this appliance can do a lot more than just ice cream and the reviews are incredible.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of ice cream recipes for ice cream makers out there and all of them carry similarities and differences. While some have you using half and half others may ask for heavy cream and not all of them want you to have rock salt on hand.
Make sure to read through the ice cream recipes before gathering your ingredients to make sure you aren’t missing or misunderstanding any of the directions.
It’d be awful to get halfway through the homemade ice cream recipe only to find out that you’re missing a key ingredient that wasn’t listed properly. Not like that’s ever happened to me or anything….
Why might you need ice cream salt?
I wanted to share this quick answer just in case you read that last paragraph and were wondering what the salt might be needed for. I mean, we definitely don’t stick a ton of salt into the ice cream recipes, so what’s it’s purpose?
Fun fact, the rock salt actually keeps the ice cream ingredients at a colder temperature. It acts as cold insulation much like a fridge or freezer would for food. Normally when you take food out of the fridge or freezer it gets warm the longer it sits out, basic science.
Not all ice cream makers require ice and salt, but the more traditional versions will require this.
With the salt, you are able to “trick” the ingredients into staying colder longer so that they can form a creamy mixture instead of a warm soupy mess. Science is be really cool!
Also important to note that you should not substitute the requested ice cream salt for table salt. While both are in the salt family, they do not hold the same properties and capabilities for making ice cream.
You wouldn’t use table salt to de-ice the driveway for the same reason you shouldn’t use there. You want the larger rocks of salt because they get the job done more efficiently.
Now, I think I’ve talked enough about ice cream makers and easy homemade ice cream recipes. I think you’re ready to check out some ice cream recipes for ice cream makers and get started on your cold journey to soft served fun.
Leave a Reply