I love ice cream and have been eyeing the KitchenAid ice cream attachment since I bought my KitchenAid five years ago. I’ve never made ice cream before, but if I’m going to pick a new hobby to dabble in, why not pick the making of creamy deliciousness that I get to eat when I’m finished? So I took the plunge and ordered the attachment and a couple of reusable quart-sized ice cream containers to start my ice cream making adventures.
I scoured Pinterest looking for recipes to make my favorite ice cream flavors. I saved a bunch and settled on two to try for my ice cream debut – banana ice cream (because duh) and Butterfingers ice cream because I’ve been craving Blue Bell Butter Crunch and haven’t been able to find it in stores. I went to the store and bought what seemed like the most unreasonable amount of different creams and prepared to get started.
To kick things off, you have to freeze the ice cream attachment for a MINIMUM of 15 hours, so PLAN AHEAD or you’ll be extremely disappointed. Take some time to read over the tips and instructions from KitchenAid, as they provide a lot of good information.
Making the banana ice cream base
So, I kicked off my morning by making the banana ice cream because it required cooking (and the Butterfingers did not). Being the non-cooker that I am, I got caught up at step 1 where I was told: ” In a saucepan heat half and half to 175 degrees F.” OH shit. I frantically began searching the internet to figure out what temperature would get me to 175 degrees and where I could buy a thermometer to monitor the temperature. I could only ultimately find meat thermometers and some other incredibly expensive thermometers that used some infra-red lasers or some shit to take the temperature, so I resorted to using my (clean) fingers to gauge. I found online that a fairly low heat would raise my ice cream to 175 degrees, so I kept on almost all the way low (between 2 to 3 on my stovetop’s scale of 2-8).
I think I’m successful when I get to the next step, which is to beat the eggs. OKAY MISS. You did not make these recipes for people who have no fucking clue what they are doing. I go back to google AGAIN. Google – how do I beat an egg? Google asks, “how are you beating it? Lightly beaten? Lemon-colored? Thick and pale yellow? Soft peaks? Stiff peaks?” I didn’t freaking know. So I chose somewhere between lightly beaten and lemon-colored and hoped for the best. I beat the damn eggs and went on with the rest of the recipe, which I was finally able to follow. I iced down the mixture and put it in the fridge to cool.
UGH. Not off to a good start.
Making the Butterfingers ice cream
At this point, I have to let the banana ice cream cool for a while, so I switched over to the Butterfingers ice cream, which just requires the mixing of ingredients and no cooking. Thank god. I halved the recipe because I didn’t need to make four quarts of this ice cream and got to work. I set up the attachment, mixed in all the ingredients, and let the KitchenAid do the rest. I checked on it a couple of times and 30 minutes later, I had a beautiful frozen ice cream mixture. I poured into my containers and put it all in the freezer to finish freezing. I stuck the ice cream attachment back in and took a break. [I’m going to add in here that it turned out delicious! See the slide show below for the finished product.]
Finishing the banana ice cream
A couple of hours later, I came back and decided to finish making the banana ice cream because I just couldn’t wait. I set up the attachment (which didn’t seem completely frozen), poured in the mixture and bananas and let it work. 30 minutes later, I still had a pretty liquid mixture so I poured into my containers to freeze the rest of the way. Fast forward 24 hours and I check the ice cream – it’s not the right consistency and I realized I rushed the process and the maker had not frozen again yet when I tried to use it. So I put the ice cream back in the refrigerator to thaw so I could try again.
Actually finishing the banana ice cream
After making sure that I had given the ice cream maker a solid 15+ hours in the freezer, I tried again. And I am SO. GLAD. I. DID. I make it and it froze (yay!) and then put it in the freezer to finish freezing. The final product was GLORIOUS. The most beautiful, perfect ice cream I’d ever seen (and tasted!).
At the end of the day, these ice cream were both so delicious and I ate them far too fast. I am going to continue experimenting and trying new flavors and will continue to share my favorites! I think this attachment is completely worth it for an easy way to make ice cream at home!
