Hamilton Beach Ice Cream Maker Review And Cherry Ice Cream Recipe

You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream!

I love summer and all the yummy cool treats that the summer brings.  That’s not to say you can’t enjoy these same cool treats during our Canadian winters but there’s nothing better than a cool treat on a hot day!

One of my and my families favourite summertime treats is ice cream! Vanilla, chocolate or bubblegum (my girls’ favourite) from the local ice cream shop for a treat is delicious.  And then there are the endless varieties of store bought tubs that we use to make our own sundae creations at home. 

I’d never tried my hand at making my own ice cream – there’s no shortage of ideas on pinterest about making ice cream in a bag and all the delicious flavour combinations!  Still something that’s on my pinterest boards of ideas to try. 

We were lucky enough to receive a Hamilton Beach Ice Cream Maker and although it’s not a 5 minute treat like ice cream in a bag, Peanut & Pofaroo loved helping make and eat it too!

 

There is a bit of pre-planning required as you need to freeze the canister for 12-24 hours prior to making your ice cream.  We’ve decided to keep our canister in the freezer all the time to have it ready to use whenever we decide we NEED homemade ice cream. 

Using the Peaches and Cream Ice Cream recipe included in the instruction manual, we altered the recipe to use the fruit we had available in our refrigerator.   In our case cherries! MMMM….Vanilla Cherry Ice Cream!!

 

With very few ingredients; milk, whipping cream, sugar, vanilla and cherries, we were quickly on our way to enjoying our very own homemade ice cream!

We noticed after 40 minutes of churning our ice cream wasn’t very solid yet, so let it run for another 20 minutes, the maximum it says it should take to make your ice cream.  Ours was still not solid enough to scoop so I put the entire canister back in the freezer to help it freeze.

While waiting for it to freeze, I read the troubleshooting section of the included guide.

*Adding too large pieces (fruit etc) can cause the paddle to become jammed and not freeze.

While our paddle was still turning freely the pieces were pretty big – likely bigger than they should have been.

*Adding more than one cup of add-ins can cause the mixture to not solidify.

BINGO!!!  I’m notorious for not always measuring when I’m adding the yummy goodness of something like cherries and I thought the more the better right?  I guess in the case of making ice cream, more isn’t always better.

It was time for Peanut and Pofaroo to head to bed so they wouldn’t get to enjoy their ice cream treat until the next day! 

And enjoy it they did! 

I have to say that when you follow the recipe and even sometimes when you don’t, with a little extra freeze time you can make your own ice cream at home!  That’s 8 thumbs up from our house and we can’t wait to try out another recipe in our Hamilton Beach Ice Cream Maker.

by Nancy T.