How To Buy A Good Ice Cream Maker

Ever savor August’s ripest peaches suspended in rich, homemade ice cream? Then you know the advantages of owning an ice cream maker: peak ingredients, no preservatives, near immediate gratification. You may not, however, realize how far ice cream makers have come since grandpa cranked his. And with today’s global economy, fresh ingredients can be had all year round.

 

How It Was

Back then, the women made the cream custard/fruit mix and poured it into a stainless steel cylinder mounted in a wooden freezer. The kids packed in ice and rock salt and started cranking. Before it was over, a man’s strong arm was often sought to finish the job.

How It Is

Today’s machines deliver hard ice cream in 30 to 40 minutes by various methods. Manual and motorized crank machines still turn out velvety creams using salt and ice. Electric alternatives feature prefrozen refrigerant- (or salt water-) filled bowls — or disks — to freeze the ice cream mix and, preferably, a 50-watt motor to power the mixing paddles as the mix hardens. Most convenient — and expensive — of all are powerful compressor-equipped gelato machines offering push-button operation.

Buying Tips

Texture matters. Constant stirring breaks down ice crystals and ensures creamy texture. So, machines that make ice cream through simultaneous freezing and stirring turn out the velvety results that equal or surpass commercial products. Anything else is granita.

The best is rarely cheap. We’re talking ice cream here — as well as machines. The best product begins with the best ingredients: heavy cream, exquisite fruit or other add-ins, fresh eggs — the works. A good machine costs less than $100, a fabulous one several hundred.

Perfection never lasts. Because you’re dealing with a fresh product — and one without stabilizers or preservatives — the longest satisfactory shelf life to expect is a week. But what are the odds you’ll have any ice cream left after a week, anyway?

Economize sensibly. You can buy an excellent economical machine that uses a bowl or cylinders that you freeze several hours in advance. You may find that so inconvenient (unless you keep them in the freezer all the time) you won’t use it.

What you do, do quickly. If you opt for a top-mount machine and bowl prefreezing, prepare your mix before you join the flat paddle and the bowl. If they freeze up, you’ll face a thaw-and-refreeze job — not ice cream.

 

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