Tips on how to make the tastiest homemade Ice Cream with your Thermomix®Appliance

I’ve always loved Ice Cream and how it lifts my mood every time I take a bite. And ever since owning a Thermomix® Appliance, I often make ice cream for my family and friends. Apart from knowing what exactly is in your homemade ice cream, you also have endless possibilities of flavour combinations.

Our ice cream recipes have always been a huge hit. And here are a couple of tips that I figured would be useful to you. And like most home cooks, I’ve had my fair share of failures and successes, with all of them contributing to being confident when making different flavours of ice cream. So hang tight as there’s a whole lot of juicy treats waiting for you as you read on. Enjoy!

Here’s my top tips for making homemade ice cream with your Thermomix® Appliance:

1. Use the freshest fruit. You’ll never run out of fruit choices to add to your ice cream. Stems, stalks and bruised sections of fruit should be removed before adding to your ice cream base.
Plus when making fruit-based ice creams, always, and I mean ALWAYS go for the freshest! The tastiest, yummiest ice creams come from the freshest of ingredients.

2. Ice cream’s creamy texture is a result of its high fat content from heavy cream. So if you don’t want to sacrifice that creamy texture, stick to the core ingredients. You can be experimental if you want and try healthier alternatives but be aware that it may change the consistency of your ice cream.

3. Sugar is more than just a sweetener. Too much sugar in your ice cream may prevent your ice cream from totally freezing while too little sugar in ice cream can make it rock hard and difficult to scoop. So while it’s easy to adjust the quantity of sugar in your ice cream, it pays to be aware that it may change your ice cream.

4. Keep everything cold. Help keep your ice cream mixture cold by keeping all ingredients cold for as long as you can. Pre-chill all ingredients and remove from the fridge at the last moment. This will result in a finer textured finish for your ice cream.

5. Mix-Ins and timing come hand in hand and are very essential. We want to keep mix-ins such as chocolate chips, nuts or fruits in small, even sizes for them to blend evenly in your ice cream mixture. I usually freeze my ice cream mixture for an hour or two before adding mix-ins. It’s all about getting just the right amount of chill to incorporate the mix-ins without them sinking to the bottom of the tub.

6. Goodbye rock-hard ice cream. Homemade ice creams tend to freeze harder than commercial ones as commercially made ice creams usually have additives to keep them soft. There are a number of tricks you can try to prevent that from happening. You can add a few tablespoons of alcohol (you can try fruit flavoured liquor for fruit flavoured ice cream, Kahlua, rum or bourbon to give a subtle undertone or even an unflavoured vodka for a neutral taste).

You can also skip the alcohol and add in corn syrup, honey or gelatin to give your ice cream just the right amount of softness to make it perfect and easy to scoop.

Making homemade ice cream may sound intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it (like I did) you’ll be making ice cream at home with your Thermomix® Appliance like a pro! Add more fun to making ice cream with ice cream molds to help you create fun and unique ice cream shapes and popsicles. Using ice cream molds with your Thermomix® Appliance allows you to create personalised and visually appealing frozen treats.

Hopefully these tips will help you get that Thermomix® Appliance working to make the best homemade ice cream for you and your family!