A breeze to freeze: Homemade ice cream has never been easier — or more creative

Growing up in the land of frozen custard, just a short drive from Leon’s and Kopp’s, I’ve been spoiled. I made ice cream a few times as a kid at camp, taking my turn with the hand crank. However, no one in my family ever made it. It was always something we bought.

Making ice cream at home seemed complicated, time-consuming and a lot more effort than Ben & Jerry’s. After several books on ice cream came across my desk this year, I wondered if I should reconsider.

Turns out making ice cream at home is easier than you might think, especially with the latest ice cream makers allowing you to whip up a frozen treat in 30 minutes or less. You can find good ones for under $100. Kitchen-Aid even offers an option for an attachment and freezer bowl to be used with your stand mixer.

The hardest part is probably deciding what to make.

Of course, you can always go old-school with hand-cranked ice cream machines and lots of hands-on help, but for time-saving and simplicity, go with the newer options that sit on your counter top and do most of the work for you.

Many ice cream makers require little more than planning ahead to freeze the bowl, adding ingredients and pushing a button. Even if you forget to add ingredients in the specified order, it will likely work out. (I made that mistake, and the ice cream was still declared delicious, if not quite the perfect consistency as when I followed directions carefully.)

Among the newer options, Cuisinart’s Fruit Scoop Frozen Dessert Maker taps into the growing interest for less sugar and transforms plain fruits including strawberries, raspberries, bananas, mangoes and kiwi into a sorbet-like treat.

It’s about as simple as you can get, requiring just measuring the fruit and adding it to the freezer bowl to be churned for about 20 minutes. You reap about a quart and a half from each go-round.

It isn’t a one-trick pony, either, as you can switch the insert and make ice cream and frozen yogurt. Newer Cuisinart models also come with a recipe booklet that now features non-dairy options made with coconut and other nut milks.

For some of the simplest no-churn recipes, you don’t even need an ice cream maker. You do need a good mixer and a large bowl. Crowd-sourcing recipe site Food52 found ice cream to be so popular that earlier this year it published “Ice Cream & Friends: 60 Recipes and Riffs” (Ten Speed Press, $22.99). Some of the most popular desserts include no-churn ice creams, which start with a 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk in a large bowl and the flavor of your choice — like vanilla or mint extract, espresso or even peanut butter powder — plus two cups of heavy whipping cream, whipped. The ingredients get folded together and frozen. It can be that simple.

Good ice cream is all about taste, texture and consistency. Homemade won’t have the same feel as store-bought, nor will it freeze and keep the same. Homemade options that don’t use stabilizers or emulsifiers typically are meant to be eaten the same day or within a few days.

The average American consumes more than 23 pounds of ice cream per year, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. That said, Bill Klein, dairy plant manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Babcock Dairy, sees a growing interest in adding “good for you” ingredients to ice cream.

“We recently came out with a cherry-flavored ice cream, Frozen Fuel,” he added. “That has additional ingredients that are considered good for you, such as whey and milk proteins, probiotics, Omega 3.” 

They also made it lactose-free and reduced the added sugar, though Klein cautions that when making ice cream at home you should always follow recipes because reducing sugar too much lowers the freezing point.

Savory or sweet, flavors are limited only by your imagination and pantry. This year’s Innovative Ice Cream Flavor Competition hosted by the International Dairy Foods Association saw smoky and spicy flavors on the rise, as well as a spike in using coffee and tea flavors.

Here in Wisconsin 4-H members compete every year to create the newest flavors for  Cedar Crest. The 2017 winner, Deep Woods, is a vanilla ice cream with maple syrup and pecans created by the Baraboo Valley 4-H Club.

While we might be noticing more artisanal flavors and unique flavors or combinations in restaurants and in the freezer aisle, Amy Ettinger thinks they’re really nothing new.

Pursuing her ice cream obsession, Ettinger went on a cross-country tour trying ice cream (and frozen custard, with stops here at Kopp’s, Leon’s, Gilles mentioned). Chronicling her journey in “Sweet Spot: An Ice Cream Binge Across America,” she notices a definite shift in flavor trends over time. She also found some interesting savory options throughout history. On her quest she sampled ice creams with garlic, foie gras, even oysters.

“When I was researching the history of ice cream in America I discovered our tastes used to be more adventurous than we think,” she said. “Dolly Madison’s favorite ice cream flavor was an oyster stew.

“In the late 19th century we were eating asparagus-flavor and Parmesan-flavor ice cream,” she continued. “We had it, then we shifted. It was World War II where our taste buds got kind of boring when it came to ice cream. Sugar and cream were limited, so that adventurous feeling that we could put anything in our ice cream wasn’t there.

“Now I think there’s a huge explosion in chefs wanting to know what they can get away with.”

She said Milwaukee was interesting in the sense that Kopp’s started things off with its flavor forecast in the ’60s. But now, “places all over the country are really pushing the boundaries. There was a cicada flavor at a place in Columbus, Missouri. It sold out before the health department could even shut them down. People want to try these very extreme flavors.”

Pastry chef Fany Gerson, owner at La Newyorkina and Dough in New York City, started her business selling paletas (Mexican popsicles) and other desserts in New York, but ice cream has always been her passion. She’s had requests for ice creams to be shipped around the country.

She’s most inspired by the ice creams of her native Mexico, where on the outskirts of Mexico City she was introduced to dozens of hand-churned ice creams, including avocado, rice pudding, mole, cucumber-lime and sour cream with chile. Combining tradition with her own modern twists, Gerson shares recipes and stories in her third cookbook, “Mexican Ice Cream.”

Gerson sees a lot of unique flavors popping up in gourmet and high-end ice creams.

“There are very funky flavors, alcohol, and more savory ingredients, whether chorizo or a savory cheese to get an interesting combination you don’t necessarily think of with ice cream,” she said.

“I love the sorbets, too, and the flavor combinations you can get. Avocado can add creaminess. For me, flavors are a very personal thing. People are just being more experimental, and that means making your own ice cream is a lot more fun.”

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Need to know

If you're making ice cream at home for the first time, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Plan ahead. Typically 24 hours before you want to make ice cream you’ll need to wash the ice cream canister/freezer bowl and dry it thoroughly. Then place it in the coldest part of your freezer until ready to use. To make ice cream on a moment’s notice, store the canister in the freezer.

Pack properly for freezing. If you are not serving the ice cream immediately, when you are ready to freeze be sure to place parchment paper tightly over the surface of the ice cream inside the container, pressing it down well to cover completely. This will help keep other flavors and air out.

Consider ingredients. Alcohol, honey and corn syrup lower the freezing point of ice cream mixtures, which means you’ll typically have a softer ice cream.