I want to start making my own ice cream. What is the basic recipe for making it? Do I need to invest in an ice cream making machine? Are there certain creams I should use and others to avoid? Is the basic recipe the same for all flavors, or do the basic ingredients differ if I make Chocolate vs Vanilla vs Strawberry for example? Thank you.
Most “normal” recipes are pretty similar, with some variation in number of eggs (and whole eggs vs. just yolks), and the cream to milk ratio (and some just use half and half to be easy). The basic ratios of milk/cream, sugar, flavoring, and eggs tend to be in the same ballpark.
I’d recommend looking in a good cookbook like Joy of Cooking, looking up Alton Brown’s recipe, and looking up two or three random other recipes online. That should give you a view of the basic variations.
I’ve heard it recommended to always add a little bit of alcohol to homemade ice cream (like an ounce of vodka), because it’ll help inhibit ice crystals.
Also, you’ll need an ice cream maker if you don’t have one. I’d HIGHLY recommend looking at Salvation Army and Goodwill. You can frequently find new or nearly new ice cream makers for less than $5.
The higher the cream-to-milk ratio, the less crystally it will be. Adding too much alcohol will inhibit freezing. If you add it, don’t add much.
My preferred method involves liquid nitrogen, but that might not be easily available in your home. On the other hand, aside from the liquid nitrogen (which is pretty cheap, if you have a source to get it from), you don’t need any special equipment at all, and it’s done really quickly.
Buying an ice cream maker is not a major investment. You can buy a new one at Targets or WalMart for about twenty dollars.
You’ll generally find that the ice is the major bottleneck. You need a lot of ice to make ice cream. So you’re going to have to either buy two of three bags of ice cubes or plan ahead and make and store a lot of ice cubes in your freezer. This is why I always make ice cream at work where we have big business sized ice making machines.
But eggs are not necessary. My understanding was that, in the US at least, there were two varieties of ice cream; the one called “French style” contains eggs, while “Philadelphia style” does not.
Ditto. My dad’s lab has a ready supply so I’ve been able to borrow a dewar full of the stuff and make ice cream for 40-50 people in 15 minutes. It’s a very spectacular thing in a fun mad scientist way.
Buy this book:
and you’ll be set. 
I have a machine that doesn’t use ice/salt; you freeze the bowl. It works well but its best if you have room to keep the bowl in the freezer at all times, because it takes 12-24 hours to get cold enough to use. The ice cream comes out of it soft-serve texture and must be tempered a bit in the freezer if you want traditional hardness. However, no mess, and no cranking.
You cant get ice cream texture without some sort of churning though. You can freeze flavored mixes 1/4 inch deep in shallow pans, scraping and breaking the ice crystals every 1/2 hour, but you’ll get more of a granita that way. Sweetened coffee is good this way.
We used to make homemade ice cream with a homemade ice-cream maker powered by an old two-stroke lawn-mower engine. The ice cream tasted only slightly like exhaust fumes.