Ice Cream Machine

This ice cream can be made up to a week in advance, which helps free up precious prep time during the always-hectic holiday season. The lovely aroma of freshly grated nutmeg will put you, and everyone who enjoys this treat, in the holiday spirit.

Inspired by Brittany’s traditional salted caramel candies, this is a knockout ice cream. If you’ve never made caramel before, be prepared for what will seem like violent splattering when the cream is added to the hot, melted sugar. Relax—this is normal and subsides quickly. The other crucial moment comes when you slowly add the steamy milk mixture to the eggs. If curdling does occur, simply strain the mixture to ensure the smoothest possible custard

Here’s a gluten-free ice cream from Epicurious member Lorelei Lee of Philadelphia, complete with the taste of carrot cake. A cooling treat, this dish is perfect for a sunny day. Cream cheese, sugar, and milk provide the backbone for the simple dish, while cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and shredded carrot give it that carrot cake feel. Like most homemade ice creams, this dessert should be eaten within a few days.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other dessert classics, check out the videos.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other dessert classics, check out the videos.

"It's not meant to be super sweet," Reusing says of this delicious, silken ice cream. "It's a fun way to taste corn." And using coconut milk in the base means there's no need to make a custard.

Chilling Time: 2 hours or overnight
Shelf Life: 1 week This recipe was inspired by the malted ice cream at Herrell's in Massachusetts. They were doing smush-ins long before anyone else, and it was there that Anne first tried malted vanilla ice cream with Heath bar pieces mixed in. It was love at first bite!

Chilling Time: 2 hours or overnight
Shelf Life: 1 week Kris loves to tinker with ice cream. Every time she tries a new flavor that she loves, she goes home and re-creates it with her own spin, like with this recipe. The original was good in theory, but it was overloaded with candied ginger and gingerbread and simply had too much going on. Kris thought, "If it just focused on a few ingredients, it would be so much better." The result is proof that the simple combination of brown sugar, ginger, and caramel is all you need for an amazing explosion of flavor. This started out as a Christmas flavor because it pairs so nicely with spiced things like gingerbread. After the holidays were over and we stopped making it, people demanded that we bring it back, so now it's always in the case and our guests enjoy it all year long.

"It's actually really good!" This phrase is heard over and over again in the shop. In fact, we've overheard it so much through the years, we've even caught ourselves saying it unwillingly. We kinda hate it, because it goes with the presumption that you've already discussed that "it"—whether it's an ice cream flavor or party or whatever—is not going to be good. The flavor that sparks the most customers to utter "It's actually really good!" is Candy Cap, a flavor made with…delicious little mushrooms. First some background: Porcini mushroom ice cream is one of the only flavor failures Jake will readily admit. It tasted OK, but it was just too earthy, and sadly, there was not a market for dirt ice cream. At least not yet. But right when we were ready to write off mushroom ice cream, we stumbled upon a wonderful species called candy cap mushrooms. A local mushroom vendor, Far West Fungi, approached us about doing a mushroom flavor. At first we were pretty skeptical, and at second, we were still skeptical. But when they finally coaxed us to visit their shop at the Ferry Building, they opened a jar of dried candy caps. They smelled like the best maple syrup ever. We were sold. We soon learned that nothing else on earth tastes like candy cap mushrooms. They carry the earthy taste associated with mushrooms, but unlike in the failed porcini experiment, candy caps deliver their own dimension of sweetness to the ice cream. Guests have said it tastes like waffles, pancakes, cinnamon buns, celery root, etc. Way more than just a novelty flavor, it's become one of our most popular flavors—it even got us on the television screen once or twice.

この味は驚くばかりである! We make White Miso ice cream in the summer with peaches, in the fall with apples, and in the winter with pears. Alice Waters would be so proud of us . . . you know, if she knew who we were. Doing a flavor with miso was a natural and logical extension of our love for savory elements in our ice creams. Miso is a thick traditional Japanese soy paste that's often used as a condiment or a flavor ingredient in cooking, and it's been growing in popularity as an ingredient in desserts. Since miso is so salty, this is one of the few recipes in the book that doesn't call for added salt or vinegar. In his search to get the flavors right, Jake went to a Japanese supermarket and bought pretty much every kind of miso in the joint: red miso, mixed miso, rice miso, purple miso, soy-only miso, miso-horny, and so on. He eventually settled on a white style. White miso is much more delicate than its counterparts. It's mellow. He still doesn't know what the label says, but boy, it sure gets the job done. White Miso is another "Wow" flavor, with distinct umami undertones that pair well with the seasonal tree fruits. It also goes secretly well with a scoop of Guinness Gingerbread, or simply a little splash of olive oil on top. Inspiration: Jake used to serve miso apple butter with crepes and olive oil ice cream.

At Humphry Slocombe, we serve hordes of loyal, beloved regulars each day. Some are more promiscuous than others, and try all our flavors, mixing it up each visit. Others are monogamous followers of specific flavors, like the one guy who comes in every day for a gallon of vanilla ice cream (for serious), or the devout woman who calls like clockwork to see if we have Rosemary's Baby. One particular young lady was a big fan of Salted Licorice, and arrived promptly every time we had it in stock. After several visits, she came in one day bearing a gift: a bag of black, salty licorice that she brought back from Sweden. When Sean didn't register who or what she was, she became very insulted, threw the candy at him, and stormed off. As soon as she left, Sean remembered her and felt terrible. Angry Licorice Girl, please come back. Sean is very sorry. Nearly everyone has a childhood reference to licorice. Salted Licorice reminds some guests of their travels to Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, where black licorice is ubiquitous. For other guests, Salted Licorice conjures up memories of chewy Red Vines in movie theaters. And it should, because we actually use Red Vines—the black ones, that is. Every once in a while, Sean stretches the truth by saying we use real licorice root. Technically, that's not incorrect…we just use real licorice root after it's been made into Red Vines. We're not afraid to be a little trashy. But not as trashy as Twizzlers. Those are gross.

A lot of commercial red bean ice creams are just your basic, junky, mass-produced ice creams made with inferior ingredients like gums and thickeners, with a little of the red-bean paste called anko stirred in. Not so the following: a custard-based, from-scratch ice cream, enriched with enough anko so that you really get both its flavor and the extra creaminess contributed by its starch. The vanilla is optional; some feel it detracts from the red- beaniness, but I think it enhances it. If you want to go to town with this one, serve it in scoops sprinkled with a little matcha (brightly colored powdered green tea), and offer matcha-flavored meringues alongside; you can make them from the egg whites you'll have left over from the ice cream. Those who are allergic to dairy products can make this using canned full-fat unsweetened coconut milk: substitute 4 cups for the milk and cream.

Because no two batches of fruit have the same sweetness, it’s important to adjust the mix before freezing. This will affect more than flavor because sugar lowers the freezing point of water; so the sweeter your mix, the slushier your sorbet. Too little sugar and the sorbet will be icy hard. Some chefs use a saccharometer (which gauges a liquid’s density by how much of the instrument floats above the surface), but a large uncooked egg stands in quite well (see step 4). Watermelon is one of the simplest flavors to make, since it requires no added water. Follow the amounts in the chart on page 485 to make the suggested flavor variations. When using only juice, you can skip the first step. Citrus fruit can be squeezed by hand. For the kiwi and pineapple sorbets, you will need to add fresh lime or lemon juice along with water in the first step. All liquids should be strained into a deep bowl or plastic container as directed. If desired, add up to 3 tablespoons of other flavorings such as liqueur before adding the simple syrup.

Custard serves as an incomparable ice-cream base. Also called French ice cream, frozen custard usually consists of a combination of egg yolks, milk, and cream. What makes it different from other ice cream, such as Philadelphia-style (which contains no egg), is the base, which is a variation of crème anglaise, a cold sauce that often accompanies soufflés, cakes, poached fruit, and meringues. (To make the sauce, simply follow the recipe below, substituting 3 cups whole milk for the skim milk and cream and omitting corn syrup; do not freeze after straining and chilling.) Unlike many store-bought versions, ice cream made from scratch has a deeply luxurious texture. It’s voluminous and soft, able to envelop whatever delectable flavors you plan to blend into it. And as long as you have an ice-cream machine, there’s not much to the preparation. It’s just a matter of cooking the custard, chilling it, and then letting the machine handle the bulk of the work. Ice cream has the best texture when it has just finished churning; it’s somewhere between soft-serve and regular ice cream. If making ice cream ahead of time, make sure to take it out of the freezer 15 to 30 minutes before serving (depending on the room temperature) to soften slightly.

Like the Butterscotch Budino (page 272), this gelato marries the sweet flavor of caramel with a touch of salt, a combination I love. It is the base of the Caramel Coppetta, a sundae composed of Marshmallow Sauce and Salted Spanish Peanuts (page 296). Even made in a home ice cream maker, it comes out dense and creamy, and I would say one of the real successes of a long gelato-making project involving a team of gelato-obsessed taste testers.

Americans think of vanilla as “plain” ice cream, the connotation often being that it is boring. But vanilla, if it’s done well, is neither plain nor boring. Although they are expensive, it’s worth the extra money to buy large, plump vanilla beans, which will impart significantly more flavor than lesser-quality beans. My favorite are Tahitian.

When we decided to take on the challenge of making real Italian gelato for the restaurants, olive oil was the first flavor I knew I wanted to make. It’s one of the most talked-about and raved-about flavors at Mario and Joe’s pizzeria, Otto, in New York. Plus, I love the flavor of olive oil so much that there was no way I would pass up an opportunity to use it in a dessert. The olive oil isn’t even cooked here, so you’ll really taste the flavor. Pull out all the stops when choosing the olive oil—and use olio nuovo when it’s available.

Stracciatella comes from the verb stracciare, which means “to tear apart.” Italians use the word for several foods, including the inside of burrata cheese, a soup in which the egg is dropped into hot broth, and this gelato, which consists of plain gelato, known as “fior di latte,” or “flower of milk,” with dark chocolate “shreds” strewn throughout. Ariana Flores, the assistant pastry chef for both restaurants, is always happy when this flavor goes back into rotation. It’s her favorite to eat, but I also think she likes the process of drizzling the chocolate over the ice cream to make the shreds. I love how plain stracciatella is—that it’s basically just milk, without even egg yolks or vanilla, which American chocolate chip ice cream generally contains—and I like the bright white color of it. If you want to make fior di latte, an Italian classic, simply omit the chocolate portion of this recipe. I especially like it topped with toasted pine nuts (page 63).

Meyer lemons are thought to be a hybrid between lemons and Mandarin oranges. They have a sweet perfume and a sweeter flavor than regular lemons. They’re originally from China, but those of us who live and cook in Southern California consider them our own. I get so excited every January when I spot these smooth-skinned citrus at the farmers’ market.

I love alcohol-flavored gelato because the alcohol cuts the richness of the dairy and also allows the gelato to get super-cold. But because alcohol doesn’t freeze, if you add too much to the gelato it won’t freeze at all. After making many versions with varying amounts of booze, we determined that the recipe below contains the maximum amount of alcohol that will freeze in a home ice cream maker. If it’s still not boozy enough for you, do as I do: drizzle a few drops of bourbon over the top.