Homemade Ice Cream

Happy New Year! I figure it’s not too late to say that as we are barely halfway through the month. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that the new year is treating you well thus far. For my first post of 2014 I’d like to share with you some cold and creamy treats I made with my newest kitchen “toy” – an ice cream maker. I absolutely love ice cream and have always wanted an ice cream maker but it never really seemed practical to own one – especially since there are so many delicious flavors on the market thanks to Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s. But, then I got a daily deal email from Williams-Sonoma featuring a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker at an unbelievable price that had decent reviews so I figured why not… Merry Christmas to me!

I decided to stick with something basic and simple the first time I used it – Vanilla Ice Cream. After refrigerating a mixture of whole milk, sugar, salt, heavy cream and vanilla extract overnight I poured it into the bowl of the machine and let it do all the work.

Within minutes the ice cream was coming together.

After about twenty minutes I had homemade Vanilla Ice Cream which went perfectly with a homemade Apple Pie a friend’s mom made.

For my second batch of homemade ice cream I decided on Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream – an ice cream with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, how could it not be good?

To begin I mixed together peanut butter, sugar, whole milk, heavy cream and vanilla extract and then poured it into a Tupperware container and refrigerated it overnight.

The next day, before starting on the ice cream, I chopped up fifteen miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to add into it.

Now I was ready to begin…

I poured the peanut butter mixture into the machine and let it run for about fifteen minutes before adding in the chopped up peanut butter cups.

 

After running for an additional five minutes the ice cream was done and it was even more delicious than the vanilla one!

Overall I’m loving my new toy… clean-up is a breeze and I always leave the two mixing bowls in the freezer so I never have to worry about them being ready to use. If you’re wondering where I found the recipes for these two ice creams, the machine actually came with a recipe book that I am definitely making good use of. Granted, the machine can be a tad bit noisy, as I did read in some reviews, but, it’s not loud enough to make you not want to use it!