How to make ice cream at home with a stand mixer or an ice cream maker
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- Fresh, homemade ice cream has a richness and smoothness that is impossible to find with a store-bought option.
- Making your own ice cream is actually quite easy when you have a good ice cream maker or a stand mixer.
- We recommend using the KitchenAid Stand Mixer with its Ice Cream Maker Attachment or the Cusinart Ice Cream Machine pictured above for best results.
- Here is how to make ice cream from scratch with a variety of devices.
Let's be honest: Professional chefs make better food than you. Sure, your omelets may come out of the pan reliably intact, your grandma's pasta sauce recipe may be a crowd pleaser, and you might bake a mean batch of cookies, but the food you get from a fine restaurant tastes objectively better, right? It's no shame. They cook all day long, so they should be good at it.
Ah but there are always exceptions, and one of them is particularly sweet: Ice cream is one of those rare foodstuffs that really is better when made at home. Whether bought from the grocery store in a tub or scooped by your local ice cream shop employee, store-bought ice cream tends to be dense and often flecked with bits of ice. Homemade ice cream has a texture that's rich, smooth, and creamy all at once.
Also, with a bit of experimentation, you can control the exact taste of the ice cream you make yourself, perfecting the intensity of the basics like vanilla or chocolate or coming up with your own crazy new flavors.
While there is lots of culinary hardware out there that can help you make homemade ice cream, you can also whip up a batch using kitchen gadgets and tools you likely already have at home.
We'll discuss several ways to make ice cream from scratch, all of which will lead to a truly delectable dessert. First, here's a basic ice cream recipe that will work well in most ice cream makers and that you can add to, alter, and dress up however you'd like.
How to make ice cream at home with a simple recipe:
- 2 1/4 cups whole milk
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, cocoa powder, strawberry jam, rum, or other flavor