Your homemade ice cream maker opinions.

[Critical1]

@Valgard

I don’t have any video but here’s some photos from my first attempt, I did this for my uncle & aunt and their kids.

Photo Storage | Photobucket

Ingredients were very simple - I used two quarts of half & half, a cup of sugar and some vanilla. Stir it all up.

Put on eye and hand protection. Make sure base is in a metal container (glass is a no-no). Add LN and stir (use wood utensils or metal & gloves). Continue adding LN and stirring (you’ll need to blow the fog away to check progress) until done. From the time stamps on my photos, from the start of pouring until the ice cream was done took four minutes. I added a bunch of chocolate chips at the end.

Results were incredibly smooth and creamy, very rich.

seriously make a video, that is friggin cool as hell

[BMalion]

@Mahna Mahna

… As it is, we’re wishing we’d gotten something smaller because 1 quart of ice cream is a little too much temptation when it’s just the two of us. …

I have the 1 pint size and I wish I’d bought something bigger!
Heeey…

[Valgard]

@Critical1

seriously make a video, that is friggin cool as hell

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=liquid+nitrogen+ice+cream&aq=4&oq=liquid+nitrogen

Take your pick

[Cervaise]

@FlyingRat

I picked up an interesting KitchenAid ice-cream maker attachment to use with our bowl-lift KitchenAid mixer. It’s got a freezer bowl like the Cuisinart, but the bowl simply clips onto where the mixer bowl normally would go, and the dasher fits over the mixer arm (so unlike the Cuisinart one, the bowl stays stationary, and the dasher turns). It’s a bit bigger than the Cuisinart, too. I haven’t had a chance to use it (it only arrived today) but I’ll try it out and report back as soon as I can…

I have this.

Or, rather, I had it. I used it all the time, and made a lot of ice cream … and the tip of the dasher eventually drilled a pinhole in the bottom of the bowl, allowing the blue freezer fluid trapped between the bowl’s walls to leak out. The apparatus is now useless.

I’m pricing countertop compressor-type models now.

[Plynck]

@Cervaise

I’m pricing countertop compressor-type models now.

My post above links to a previous discussion where I mention that I have a Lello. I can vouch for it being one terrific appliance. Mine is the 1 qt model, although a 2 qt version is available for quite a bit more money. I don’t think it’s worth buying the bigger model unless you are doing this professionally; because you don’t need to chill a bowl overnight, you can just keep making ice cream as long as you like. I made about 8 quarts of sorbet (strawberry, passion fruit and pineapple) last weekend while I was working around the house.

[Cervaise]

Cool. That’s one of the ones I was looking at, but it’s a little spendier than the other options. Good to know the money is worth it.