Favorite Ice Cream Flavors

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.” Homemade ice cream is everyone’s favorite dessert, especially in the summertime. Smooth and creamy; there are so many flavors and varieties. When we were growing up, our family had a hand-cranked ice cream machine. Rock salt, ice and plenty of elbow grease were needed to churn a batch of ice cream. I’ve saved recipes for different ice cream flavors over the years; and have featured several on my food and cuisine blog. Here is a pictorial of some of my favorite ice cream varieties. “Brandied Blackberry Ice Cream” with sugar cookies is an example.  Hungry? Read on.

We have a persimmon tree growing in my backyard. One of my first ice creams used these ripe persimmons  The tree is the Hachiya Persimmon variety which is an oblong, conical astringent fruit. This variety grows on a  self-pollinating, deciduous tree which produces fruit every other year. When fully ripe, the fruit is sweet and gelatinous with deep orange flesh. It loses some of its astringent qualities.  

I made a delicious “Persimmon Ice Cream” with pumpkin spices and Frangelico liqueur.

Another favorite ice cream when growing up was “Very Cherry Berry Ice Cream.” The aromatic flavor of fresh cherries in a custard-type ice cream can’t be beat. I remember that we made this ice cream in the backyard on the Fourth of July after a swim in the neighborhood pool and picnic.

I like to use local Louisiana ingredients in my ice creams. One year, while sorting through my cupboards, I found that I had three bottles of Steen’s cane syrup molasses.

Let’s make ice cream.

For this recipe, I made a custard with eggs and milk (rather than heavy cream.) The syrup provided the sugar.

Let’s serve the ice cream with candied pecans (which were grown in Louisiana).

“Peach Ice Cream” is another great summer ice cream variety using fresh peaches.

I like to make custard ice creams adding fresh summer fruit. The custard ice cream seems to meld the flavors tougher better than anything else. To make the ice cream, cook an egg custard on the stove — carefully so the eggs don’t curdle. Let the custard chill.

I have several “modern” ice cream churners. My favorite is an electric Cuisinart Ice Cream maker. With this type of appliance, the double-walled container is frozen. A jell inside the container’s inner walls freezes and transfers the cold temperature to the ice cream so that the ice cream freezes. Easy and simple, just freeze the ice cream container ahead of time. The electric motor does all the churning and work.

Although custard ice creams are great, if I’m in a hurry, other ingredients can be used as emulsifiers so that small ice cream crystals are formed giving a smooth texture. For this batch of peach ice cream, I added a carton of instant lemon pudding instead of making a custard. 

I used whole milk rather than cream making this a delicious low-fat ice cream.

I love chocolate ice cream. Here I used squares of Ghirardelli chocolate in the mix for a chocolate flavor.

And homemade waffle cones are easy to make and give a “cookie-type” wafer to go along with the ice cream..

Ice cream desserts can be creative and interesting, too. When growing up, we loved to make “ice cream floats” using a carbonated beverage and vanilla ice cream. This ice cream float uses an apple-flavored carbonated drink. Yum! It tastes great on a hot summer day.

This chocolate “bomb” uses a chocolate cake and ice cream which are covered with a chocolate glaze for chocolate-a-holics.

And my favorite ice cream dessert of all is a birthday ice cream cake. Reason to celebrate.

Enjoy the recipes for these and other ice creams on my blog: beyondgumbo.com