Baby, It’s Cold Inside

My wonderful siblings-in-law recently gifted me with a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. I’ve been dying to try my hand at my dad’s famous 4th of July peppermint ice cream, but I started with a basic for my first go-round. A monkey could make vanilla ice cream with this contraption, yet I still encountered problems. So instead of providing a recipe, I’ll spare you the mistakes I made and share a few well-learned tips for your next ice cream venture. 

  1. Chill the bowl for a full 24 hours: There is nothing more frustrating than trying to make ice cream and being left with really cold soup. 
  2. Chill the mixture that goes into the maker overnight. See note 1 above. 
  3. If you’re doing classic vanilla, splurge for decent vanilla extract (beware of ones that list water as the first ingredient or ones that hide the word “immitation” in small letters). 
  4. Buy a vanilla bean. They’re about $10 a pop, but you don’t have to use the whole thing and it’s worth it so your final product isn’t so … well … vanilla. 

I hope your first attempts go more smoothly than mine, but even with the hiccups and a few four-letter words, the final product was nothing short of heavenly. Peppermint, here I come!