Homemage ice cream is great because you can make whatever flavors you want and you know exactly what goes into it. I also like making it myself because it usually tastes better than what you can buy at the store. Timber and I got an ice cream maker about a month ago and in that time our ice cream skills have gotten better and our recipes have gotten more complicated. Here are our iterations along with the results:
Iteration 1:
Simple Vanilla ice cream. We didn't leave the cylinder in the freezer long enough, and as a result the ice cream never really formed. So we ended up taking the materials out of the cylinder and into the freezer which made a very dense sorbet-type vanilla ice cream.
Iteration 2:
Chocolate chip ice cream, this time with the cylinder being frozen solid. It was made with the basic vanilla recipe and near the end we put in dark chocolate chunks (68 % cacao). This ice cream was pretty simple yet it turned out to be really good.
Iteration 3:
An order of magnitude more complicated. It was mint basil chocolate chip ice cream. I got the recipe from the Scharffenbuger "The Essense of Chocolate" cookbook. It started by mixing and simmering the milk and sugar. Then I simmered and mixed the cream with basil and mint leaves. Then I blanched spinach for 30 seconds, then chopped it. Then I blended (in a blender) and milk/sugar and the spinach and then strained it through a strainer. This was to give it the green color (no artificial colors or sweeteners here hippies...) Then I strained the cream/basil/mint mixture. Then I had to mix both mixtures together and cool them overnight. When I made the ice cream I mixed in the chocolate chunks (again 68 % cacao) at the end. This ice cream had a very basil-minty flavor which was unlike any other ice cream I've had. I thought it turned out pretty good.
Iteration 4:
Vanilla base with a chocolate sauce/fudge swirl and chocolate nibs (Seeds of the cocoa plant, Theobroma cacao, are left to ferment, which modifies the bitterness, and their color darkens. They are then roasted and separated from the husks as two halves of the seed known as cocoa nibs. They contain about 50% fat, part of which is removed in the preparation of chocolate and cocoa for beverages.). This ice cream turned out ok, I used too many nibs and I got lazy on the chocolate sauce which caused it to get concentrated near the bottom of the ice cream container. The next time I make this "creation" I'll use half as many nibs and not be lazy with the chocolate sauce.