Ice cream-the mouth-watering dessert is an all-time favourite treat for everyone. The year-round demand that it has attained shows its popularity. Especially, the summers increase the cravings for ice cream manifold. However, having a scoop of ice cream in winter or any other day of the year hits differently.
A delicious cone of chilled creamy ice cream is loved by people of all age groups. While it makes a kid smile instantly, it can soothe even a grown-up as well.
How nice would it be if you knew how to make ice cream at home. With over 1000 ice cream flavours in existence, preparing one at home and enjoying every day can be true bliss.
Surprisingly, this yummy delicacy is very easy to whip up at home. You just need the basic ingredients and an ice cream maker to enjoy your favourite ice cream from the comfort of your home.
Below mentioned are some easy homemade ice cream recipes of different flavours as well as some interesting add-ons to your favourite ice cream.
What Is Ice Cream Made From?
Fresh ingredients when mixed transform into this delicious dessert. Though there are few ingredients required for ice cream, the proportion can vary depending upon the flavour and colour.
The list of ingredients in ice cream normally includes are sugar, water, egg, fruits, and spice such as cocoa or vanilla. Although flavours are a primary element in ice creams, colourings are sometimes added to maintain a certain tint of the dessert.
In addition to this dairy products in various forms like milk, cream or other processed fats are used. For sweetening, either sugar or an alternative is added as well.
Various additives like waffles, jam, chocolate are usually used for extra flavour. Apart from these, caramel, nuts, chocolate chips and many other toppings are used for garnishing.
Popular Types of Ice Cream
Sherbet
This fruity frozen treat is made with water, fruit juice, milk or cream and sugar. Sherbet is less creamy than regular ice cream.
Falooda
Falooda is an chilled Indian dessert is made of rose syrup, thin vermicelli, and sabja seeds or chia seeds with milk and served with ice cream.
Rolled Ice Cream
Spiralling rolls of smooth ice cream are served in a cup, smothered with Oreos, chocolate chips, and other toppings. Rolled ice cream is made using milk, sugar, cream, and other ingredients stirred and cooled at the same time.
Kulfi
A traditional Indian ice cream, kulfi is a dense, milk-based frozen dessert. Various flavours of kulfi include mango, vanilla, pistachio, malai.
Ice Popsicle
Water or milk-based frozen dessert on a stick is loved by kids. It is not whipped while freezing, instead, it is frozen while at rest to get a hard ice pop. Ice pops come in many fruity flavours such as pineapple, orange, strawberry, and apple
Soft Serve
Soft serve ice cream has more air than other types of ice cream which gives it a swirly and light texture. Made with milk and sugar, it is rapidly churned with air to create a smooth and light creamy treat. Most importantly, soft serve doesn’t contain any toppings.
Frozen Yogurt
A frozen dessert made with yoghurt or other dairy and non-dairy products is less fatty than regular ice cream. Frozen yoghurt’s consistency is similar to soft serve, but it has a different flavour since it’s made without milk and cream.
Flavours of Ice cream
Based on different flavouring ingredients used with the basic ones, ice cream comes in thousands of flavours. once you know how to make ice cream at home, you can always experiment with adding various ingredients and create ice cream of your choice.
Though there are countless flavours of ice cream, a few flavours are popular around the globe.
Vanilla Ice Cream: Made using heavy whipping cream, whole milk, sugar and vanilla bean paste, this is the most loved flavour. Vanilla ice cream is often used as a primary base while preparing other flavours.
Oreo Ice Cream: Crushed Oreo cookies are the main flavouring ingredient used in this ice cream. This yummy dessert is made by mixing oreo cookies thoroughly with whipped cream, milk and sugar.
Chocolate Ice Cream: Another ice cream in demand is chocolate ice cream. It is made with natural or artificial chocolate flavourings. You can use cocoa powder to give a yummy chocolaty flavour.
Strawberry Ice Cream: Freshly blended strawberries are added to the basic ice cream ingredients like heavy cream, milk and sugar. Pink gel food colouring is usually added to give a proper tint to this flavour of ice cream.
Frozen Custard Ice Cream: Apart from the basic ingredients like cream, sugar and milk, frozen custard has an extra unique ingredient, eggs.
Salted Caramel Ice Cream: Salted caramel ice cream is made with plain ingredients like cream, milk, sugar, butter and salt. The key is a silky smooth caramel sauce flavour that is created by perfectly caramelized sugar.
Mango Ice Cream: A seasonal treat for all mango lovers, mango ice cream is made using fresh mango pulp blended with other ingredients.
Popular Ice cream Toppings
Once you know how to make ice cream, it is important to learn about various additives that enhance the taste of this dessert and give it texture.
The toppings smothered on the top of freshly churned ice cream add extra flavour, apart from improving the tint and texture of ice cream. Here’s a list of some popular ice cream toppings with which you can top your ice cream:
- Caramel
- Oreos
- Cookies
- Whipped Cream
- Chocolate
- Fruit
- Candy
- Peanut Butter
- Nuts
You can add additional ingredients and toppings depending on the ice cream you are making.
Ice Cream Maker
Ice cream making machines perform churning and freezing actions on the ice cream mixture to get a smooth paste with smaller ice crystals. Some machines use ice and rock salt to incorporate air.
By speeding up the process of freezing the ice cream base along with some churning action, we get a fine and creamy textured mixture. Thus, an ice cream making machine helps efficiently in the preparation of ice cream.
How To Make Ice Cream With A Machine
Ice cream making is indeed an easy and quick task. Homemade ice cream can be prepared by following a few simple steps.
Ingredients
- Whole Milk
- Whipping cream
- Sugar
- Flavouring ingredient
- Toppings
Along with this include egg yolks, colourings and other ingredients are added.
Instructions:
You have to begin the preparations for ice cream a day ahead of the actual process. Follow these steps to ensure some amazing results:
- Freeze the ice cream machine bowl for at least 4-12 hours before making ice cream (for most machines).
- Prepare the base of ice cream at least 12 hours before you want to churn it and chill the mixture overnight.
Once you grasp this process of how to make ice cream at home, you’ll want to prepare a fresh batch every week, without consuming the ones with artificial ingredients or stabilizers from the grocery store.
Now, let’s move on to these easy steps on how to make ice cream in an ice cream maker:
- Pour cold whipping cream into the pre-frozen ice cream bowl.
- Add milk and sugar.
- Now, add the main ice cream ingredient (as per your ice cream flavour).
- Mix up all the ingredients well. Remember the mixture should be chilled before pouring into the machine.
- Put the pre-frozen bowl on the machine. Cover up the container and turn the machine on.
- Continue pouring the mix into the machine bowl as it’s churning.
- Churn the mixture for about 15-20 minutes.
- Pour the freshly churned mix into a container and add extras like fruit, candy or other toppings at this stage.
- Freeze the ice cream in an airtight container, undisturbed, for at least 6 hours before serving the ice cream.
The ice cream is ready to serve when it’s hard and set. The quality of the ice cream also depends on how cold the ingredients were when you added them.
How Long Does It Take To Make Ice Cream?
Assuming that you’ve already frozen the bowl, it takes around 20-40 minutes to churn and thicken the ice cream in the machine.
Stop churning if the ice cream starts to turn hard. After about 40 minutes, it will stop freezing the ice cream.
How To Make Ice Cream Without Ice Cream Maker
Ingredients:
- Heavy cream: 2 cups
- A can of sweetened condensed milk
- Vanilla extract: ½ teaspoon
- Main flavouring ingredient as per the choice of ice cream
Instructions:
- Pour 2 cups cold heavy cream into the bowl and whip continuously into stiff peaks until it gets denser.
- Add a can of sweetened condensed milk. You can also use whole milk with sugar instead of sweetened milk.
- Add half teaspoon vanilla extract and mix well slowly until incorporated.
- Add the main flavouring ingredient and mix gently.
- Pour the mixture into the container to settle uniformly.
- Add toppings and cover the container.
- Freeze for at least 6 hours.
- Your favourite ice cream is ready to serve.
Serve the ice cream with preferred toppings. These simple steps can help you learn how to make ice cream at home with ease.
How to make Ice cream without Sugar
Sugar has a lot of calories and no nutrients. We often try to avoid sugar in many recipes. Though ice cream is a dessert and hence, tends to have a lot of added sugar. To avoid this, some recipes often suggest sugar substitutes.
Though there is not a lot of changes in the recipe, it is as easy as all the other recipes mentioned above. Learn how to make ice cream without sugar.
Ingredients:
- Milk
- Whipped cream
- Vanilla Essence
- Honey
Instructions:
- Mix 1 cup milk and 1 cup whipped cream in the ice cream maker bowl and whisk well.
- Now, add 1 tablespoon high-quality vanilla essence and combine well.
- Add honey for a little sweet taste.
- Continue churning the mixture and check in between.
- Freeze the mixture for at least 4-6 hours.
Tips on How to make Ice cream at Home
- Ingredients with higher fat content give a creamier and smoother texture to ice cream. So, always use high quality, high-fat ingredients to get creamy, delicious results.
- Make sure that the bowl is dry before freezing. And do not take it out earlier than suggested.
- Freeze the ice cream for a minimum of 4-6 hours to ensure it is properly frozen.
- Don’t forget to put the ice cream mix in the freezer a day ahead. Adequately chilled ingredients enhance the texture and flavour.
- If you are not using an airtight container, use plastic wrap to cover the container to avoid ice formation on ice cream.
- Do not over-churn the ice cream.
- Add toppings like crushed cookies, nuts, chocolate chip, candy or fruit, before placing it in the freezer to harden.
There are a lot of other flavours you can try in ice cream. Just blend the primary ingredients and add different flavourings to create different varieties of ice cream.
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Last Updated on by ritukhare