Home Made Ice Cream – Is It Cheaper To Make Or Buy? – Top Tips
August 12, 2009 by Mia Kane
Filed under Diet Foods
Electric Ice Cream makers are a great way to make ice cream. But I’m always being asked whether or not it’s cheaper to make yourself or to buy it. Two answers to this, Yes and No. But the great thing is you Can make it cheaper if that’s what you want.
I have kids that eat a lot of ice cream, so mine is nearly always cheaper. Sometimes for special occasions, I dress it with an expensive or exotic fruit, but not for the kids. The fruit usually ends up on the floor or up a nostril. Mostly if I am using fruit, it’s tinned or frozen and tastes just great.
If you live out in the country, you can always go picking seasonal fruit, and I mean the free ones, like blackberries, and blueberries. Using shop bought, out of season fruit can make the ice cream more expensive.
But I do find frozen and tinned fruit work really great. Remember you can buy fruit in season when it’s really cheap and freeze it yourself. Here are some other tips for making sure you get great ice cream.
1. Once your ice cream has defrosted, do not re freeze. The texture will be awful, and there is also a danger of food poisoning.
2. Sometimes I make my ice cream manually, especially when I want to entertain the kids for an afternoon. I get them involved and helping. Mostly though I use an electric ice cream maker, when you make ice cream several times a week, the hands on approach of manual making can be laborious and time consuming.
3. Remember that home made ice cream will not have all the preservatives that store bought has in it. This means that it will not last as long. So try to use within a couple of weeks in the freezer.
4. Don’t serve too cold, you’ll get a headache! So leave out of the freezer for 10-15 minutes before eating.
5. Keep left over chocolate and biscuits, freeze them, they can be used for choc chip ice cream, but also you can just crumble biscuits over the top.
6. Warning! Blueberries when frozen come out like little pellets, so don’t put them in whole, crush them before adding them to any mixture, or better still, just serve them with the ice cream.
Making your own ice cream is really rewarding, you can also get the kids involved. Bringing home made ice cream around to a friends house for dinner is a lovely gift and you can all enjoy it together.
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Sigh I love my ice cream, but I know it’s going straight to my gut. I used to eat a bowl several times a week, but I am working on my willpower to make it a couple times a month. Perhaps making ice cream at home is my answer. Maybe I can make some tasty ice cream that’s a little healthier.
Humm I could really see the benefit of making your own ice cream if you have kids, could be a very fun activity to do with them to keep them entertained, as well as their sugar levels happy =D
Till then,
Jean