Homemade Ice Cream Machines
There are several different styles of ice cream machines available, hand cranked ice cream machines, electric ice cream machines and other gadgets that will tumble the ingredients such as a ball you kick back and forth.
The old fashioned hand cranked ice cream machine requires the addition of both ice and rock salt to an outer tub. An inner tub holds the cream, sugar and other ingredients. The idea is to keep the ingredients agitated while rapidly cooling them down to freezing. This is where the rock salt and ice come into play. The rock salt interacts with the ice taking the temperature down even more. The downside of making ice cream using a hand cranked ice cream machine is that it takes a great deal of effort to maintain the cranking over the required period of time. But boy is it worth the effort! The upside to hand cranking is that making homemade ice cream while camping, picnicking or fishing is possible without using electricity.
Electric ice cream makers come in two flavors, those that require ice and rock salt and those that don’t. Let’s face it, who keeps a supply of rock salt around the house? Once the first bag runs out, chances are the ice cream machine will end up out in the garage collecting dust. A better option is the electric ice cream maker that uses solid frozen cores to freeze the ingredients. Simply store these cores which double as the container in the freezer and homemade ice cream is a possibility at any time. Some even stack within themselves making their footprint much smaller than you’d expect. If they take up too much freezer space, you can store them elsewhere but be sure and remember to freeze them about twenty four hours before you want to make your ice cream.
Other gadgets for making homemade ice cream exist and look like fun for the kids. One is shaped like a ball with an inner container for the ingredients and a space surrounding the core for the ice and rock salt. Let the kids kick or roll the ball back and forth for about a half hour and before you know it, you have homemade ice cream! While fun and entertaining, expect the novelty to wear off after a few uses. Also, these are small units so there won’t be as much ice cream to share.
