ICE-CREAM MAKER

Making your own ice cream used to be a very difficult and labor-intensive process. Today, thanks to technology, it is easier and cheaper to produce quality ice cream in your kitchen. The earliest machine manufactured for home use is the manual ice-cream churn. A churn is basically a bucket with a motor on top that is run by old-fashioned elbow grease—hand cranking. This machine is not for weaklings. Making a batch of ice cream with one of these machines requires more than a half-hour of constant turning. The benefit of hand cranking your ice cream is that you have total control over the entire process, which means you can experiment with texture and taste more freely.

The majority of home ice-cream makers these days run on electricity rather than human energy. There are more expensive machines that have their own freezers built in and literally require the push of a button to make ice cream.

Some kitchen experience helps the process along because there are ingredients that need to be measured and mixed. Milk and ice alone don't make ice cream—you'll also need sugar, eggs (for some recipes), and whatever flavorings you decide to use for your batch. These make up what is called custard, which, when frozen, gives us ice cream.