Home Ice Cream Makers - What's The Best Ice Cream Maker For Home Made Ice Cream

By Freddy McCandless

Long ago, it used to be a treat to go out for ice cream. Then ice cream could be purchased in supermarkets and people would take it home to eat as a treat. Then all sorts of companies like Ben & Jerry's start unleashing quirky (and some would say downright dangerous) varieties onto the market.

Well it's come a full circle now and people can make their own home made ice cream. They can even get books of recipes for famous varieties from ice cream luminaries like Ben and Jerry. If making ice cream at home sounds like a fun thing to do then check out what kind of ice cream makers are available and how they work. This article will review the main types of ice cream makers and give you a better idea of what you need to make ice cream.

There are really 3 kinds of ice cream maker. The old fashioned maker is slightly more complicated than the more modern types because everything was pretty much done manually.

The concept of making ice cream is to freeze a cream mixture whilst aerating it or allowing air to pass through the mixture. The aerating process ensures that the ice crystals are not to big and the ice cream has a soft and consistent texture. This process of aerating and freezing the mixture concurrently is perform by placing it in a cold environment and passing a paddle through it.

The older machines (and retro inspired machines of today) use a manually churning process. This is simply a handle that allows the ice cream maker (person) to turn the paddle in a vat or bowl where the mixture resides.

The vat or bowl where the mixture reside is enclosed with a coolant. This, more often than not, needs to be added by the maker every time they want to make some ice cream. Hand churning is a great way to make ice cream but it is probably far more hard work than using a modern machine.

The more contemporary machines use an electric motor to perform the churning. This is obviously an easier way to make ice cream but requires electricity to work. Of the modern machines there are two systems that cool the ice cream (or freeze it to be more precise).

The first uses what is referred to as a double insulated bowl, meaning that it has an inner and outer surface with coolant liquid in between. This coolant has to be frozen solid before you can start to make the ice cream. The biggest problem with this system is that the coolant needs to be frozen and this can take many hours (approximately 8 hours for most machines). And if you only have one bowl then you have to refreeze it each time you want to make a new batch. However these types of ice cream makers are generally far cheaper than the other type.

The other type have a dedicated refrigeration unit or freezer in the machine. This gives you the ability to make delicious ice cream from the off in no more than 30 minutes. This kind of machines are more suited to large enterprises like ice cream shops or even restaurants, but some also exist for the home. Obviously the complexity of these machines means they are the most expensive and generally reserved for professional use. - 29884

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