My wife and I recently cashed in our AirMiles for a nice little ice cream maker. We've had a few flubs, which is mainly the fault of not being used to the process, but for the most part it churns out some tasty ice cream. We just made a batch of butterbeer (think Harry Potter) that was delicious. A little like cream soda. Could've used a bigger batch, though, 'cause it was gone in no time. Anybody else made ice cream before? Did it turn out well? Or was it more of a hassle than the results were worth?
My husband and I made homemade peanut butter and banana "ice cream," which really wasn't ice cream at all because it has no dairy, but still turned out with the same consistency and texture of ice cream. In order to make it, you take 2 frozen bananas and break them into smaller pieces. Then, using a heavy duty blender or food processor (the key is heavy duty, otherwise it will break, like ours did the first time we made this), blend the frozen bananas with 4 tablespoons of creamy peanut butter. This "ice cream" turns out to be very sweet and rich, with the perfect peanut butter to banana ratio. I especially like how it seems like you're getting a real treat while eating this, when in actuality it's a pretty healthy dessert! Also, because bananas are always fairly inexpensive, this is a cheap way to enjoy a frozen treat!
We've tried it but only the makeshift type as we could not commit to buying a machine since we're the type of family that kind of forgets about miscellaneous appliances like those eventually. We kind of knew we'd only be doing it a few times for the experience so we decided to just use the salt and ice method, which was fun enough and we did thankfully manage to have some successful batches, but it's a bit too much effort and local brand ice cream is fairly cheap so we just buy it most of the time.
I've made banana and coconut milk ice-cream and peach and coconut milk ice-cream. Those work well I think. I'd like to try a coconut milk and pineapple one too, but I've not had a chance to try that yet. I'm a massive fan of ice-cream generally but I can't have dairy so it makes buying store bought ice-creams difficult, so making it myself is a better option for me. I often end up making sorbets or popsicles as well.
I think we're going to go the sorbet route most of the time in our house. The homemade ice cream we're making is tasty, but it requires too much cream to make it often. We have lots of frozen fruits we can use for sorbet anyway.
No I've never made ice cream at home before. It sounds 'delish and I don't know if in the future I'd make ice cream at home though for I like to get my ice cream at the store. I guess I'm too lazy to make my ice cream at home too much fuss and too much bother. At BaskinRobins.com they have a e-mail sign up for free ice cream on your birthday too. Sorry I'll just buy ice cream, for I'm just too lazy to make it at home.
