From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Desktop ice cream maker
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:44:06 -0400
Message-ID: <4mdg235hltu9o41cahlf6rq84c9i7ll79s@4ax.com>

I'm somewhat legendary around these parts for my homemade ice cream.
For years I had free dessert night in the restaurant on Fridays and
all anyone wanted was homemade ice cream, particularly my coffee ice
cream.

Part of the legend is the "5 minute freezer" that I built right after
I got married.  I loved ice cream back then but didn't like having to
hassle with ice and salt.  When I came across a 1 hp R12 condensing
unit, I decided to fix that situation.  I lined the inside of a
regular homemade ice cream freezer with a copper coil connected to the
condensing unit.  I filled the bucket with 50-50 anti-freeze mix and
was ready to freeze.  If I plugged the thing in to pre-cool before I
started mixing the batch, it would be cold enough to freeze in 5-10
minutes.  If I let it run long enough it would freeze the anti-freeze
:-)

I bet I made hundreds of batches with that thing over a few years'
time span.  When I moved to PA, the parts got scattered and I never
got around to rebuilding it.

I STILL wanted quick ice cream.  Not long after moving to PA I started
seeing self-contained ice cream makers that worked the way my homemade
one did - self-contained refrigeration unit.  The price was beyond my
Jesus factor, though, usually in the $500 or more range.

Cuisinart came out with a small counter-top unit a few years ago that
looked really neat.  It was still too high at about $350. I waited.

A few days ago I was prowling the net and found this:

http://www.amazon.com/Remanufactured-Cuisinart-ICE-50BC-Supreme-Cream/dp/B000K9UQD

Ahhh, my price range.  Thanks to one-click shopping I had it on its
way in minutes.  It came in today.  I'm a happy camper!  I just
finished up a batch and am in love.  It's not as fast as my homemade
unit but it does OK.  With chilled ingredients it took about 30
minutes to freeze enough to stop the agitator.

It's simple enough.  The console is about the size of two toasters
sitting side-by-side.  Smaller than my portable ice maker.  Definitely
RV-sized.  There's a stainless steel well into which an aluminum cup
fits very tightly.  The contact is so good that no thermal coupling
media is needed.  There's a curved bar that sits on top that contains
the agitator motor.  On the top of the unit is a pilot light and a
0-60 minute wind-up timer.

Simple enough to operate.  Pour in the mix, pop in the agitator,
optionally, put on the plastic lid, plop on the agitator motor, set
the timer and wait.  The cup holds about a quart I'd guesstimate.  The
agitator motor is surprisingly strong.  The ice cream was at least as
hard when the motor stalled as with my expensive White Mountain unit.

Of course I had to do some testing.  Using the Kill-A-Watt, I measured
the initial running wattage at 165 and a surprisingly low PF of 0.60.
After the agitator is removed and the ice cream is just sitting there
firming up, the current drops to about 90 watts.  Definitely an
inverter/battery operated candidate.  With the low power factor I'd
guess that it would take a 250 watt inverter to run the thing.

About the only negative is the tight fit of the cup inside the
refrigerated stainless steel well.  The fit is so precise that if the
cup gets dropped and dented it probably won't fit. I'm definitely
going to order a spare.

OK, so here's my world famous recipe for ice cream:

Diabetic Friendly Vanilla Ice Cream for Cuisinart

1.5         cup     Milk
1/3-1/2     cup     Splenda
2           tsp     Vanilla Extract
1.5         cup     Cream, heavy whipping
1           ea      Egg, Raw

Whip ingredients together to increase the volume at least 20%.  It is
very important to entrain at least 20% air by volume in the mix.  This
is called "overrun" in the biz and is responsible for the light and
creamy mouth feel.  I use a handheld stick mixer (AKA "bamix"*) but
anything that can beat in some air will do the job.  Such as a
blender, for example.

I can't tell the taste difference between Splenda and sugar so if you
like you can use sugar in the same measure.  I specify a range of
sugar, depending on how sweet you like your ice cream.  I like it not
so sweet and so use 1/3 cup.

If you're phobic about raw eggs, the whole mix can be heated to a boil
and very quickly cooled by placing the sauce pot in cold water,
preferably with some ice mixed in.  I suggest Bamixing it the whole
time to keep the egg from coagulating.  You'll have to whip in the
overrun again after the mix cools.

To make my world famous Coffee ice cream, use the above recipe.  Mix
the milk and heavy whipping cream and heat almost to a boil.  Pour the
milk into a French Press and add about twice the amount of ground
coffee that you'd normally use.  Allow to sit for a few minutes, skim
the surface to keep the solids from clogging the French Press's
screen, press the mix and pour off the coffee/milk.  Add milk and
cream to bring the volume back up to 3 cups.  Cool at least to room
temperature, mix in the other ingredients and make Ice Cream.

This is so good it'll make your tongue slap your mouth so hard it'll
knock some sense into ya! :-)  I've heard that a Moka like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Bialetti-Moka-Express-3-Cup/dp/B0000CF3Q6

can be used in place of a French Press but I've never tried it.  I
have my doubts, because when milk is heated to the boiling point it
makes a lot of solids which I bet would stop up the Moka's screen.

I've also made Coffee ice cream by heating the milk/cream and adding
instant coffee.  Not as good but not nearly as bad as instant coffee
is compared to good brewed coffee.  Still, to me the extra effort of
using the French Press is worth it.

* I bought my first Bamixer in the early 80s from a dealer at a home
show.  It's still running fine.  I bought my second one (one for home,
one for the restaurant) at William-Sonoma but they don't seem to show
it on their website now.  Hmmm, Google just found it here:

http://mendingshed.stores.yahoo.net/bamixred.html

Around $100 is a good price.  There are a lot of cheap-sh*t copies of
this out there including a Braun.  No power and clumsy.

This thing can do a lot of other things too.  Like pureeing stuff.
Fast.  I used it to puree jalapeno peppers for my cream of pepper
cheese soup.  It'll froth cold skim milk to top Cappuccino with.  If
you're like me, all those steam frothers do is piss you off! Excellent
milk shake mixer too.  Excellent coffee bean grinder. Excellent spice
grinder.  I use it (with a gas mask on) to powder dried Habanero and
Chipotle peppers for my Nuclear Nightmare hot sauce.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Desktop ice cream maker
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 12:04:54 -0400
Message-ID: <g3ph239i2pmoq1912q88d0s3bs4ngbei1b@4ax.com>

On 20 Apr 2007 09:02:24 -0700, David The Hamster Malone
<malone@ca.ibm.com> wrote:

>On Apr 20, 12:44 am, Neon John <n...@never.com> wrote:
>
>> About the only negative is the tight fit of the cup inside the
>> refrigerated stainless steel well.
>
>What about the noise everybody complains about? Just how loud is it
>anyway...?

About like a regular salt and ice unit.  The gearbox sound is similar.
The noise didn't bother me at all.  I think those reviewers were just
too sensitive.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Desktop ice cream maker
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:41:42 -0400
Message-ID: <p85j235lvgou9i73odcubv496vfp97km8d@4ax.com>

On Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:31:13 GMT, Al Balmer <albalmer@att.net> wrote:

>On Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:44:06 -0400, Neon John <no@never.com> wrote:
>
>>Ahhh, my price range.  Thanks to one-click shopping I had it on its
>>way in minutes.  It came in today.  I'm a happy camper!  I just
>>finished up a batch and am in love.  It's not as fast as my homemade
>>unit but it does OK.  With chilled ingredients it took about 30
>>minutes to freeze enough to stop the agitator.
>
>Cuisinart now has a two-quart version of this, smaller but apparently
>does the same job. There must be some difference, though, considering
>the price - $49.99 at Sam's Club.
>http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=361123

If you don't mind freezing the thing beforehand in your freezer (no
compressor) and not getting very hard ice cream then it's fine.  Seems
like that one is under $30 onthe web.  Probably not something you're
going to take RVing.  I've wasted money on something like that before.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Desktop ice cream maker
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 21:38:15 -0400
Message-ID: <qj5d3317gqalr3cqmrrq7sucmeejjj2dqi@4ax.com>

On Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:05:01 -0700, "Kevin W. Miller"
<i09172strudelyahoo.com> wrote:

>In news:4mdg235hltu9o41cahlf6rq84c9i7ll79s@4ax.com,
>Neon John <no@never.com> typed:
>>
><snipped a bunch for brevity>
>>
>> Around $100 is a good price.  There are a lot of cheap-sh*t copies of
>> this out there including a Braun.  No power and clumsy.
>>
>> This thing can do a lot of other things too.  Like pureeing stuff.
>> Fast.  I used it to puree jalapeno peppers for my cream of pepper
>> cheese soup.  It'll froth cold skim milk to top Cappuccino with.  If
>> you're like me, all those steam frothers do is piss you off! Excellent
>> milk shake mixer too.  Excellent coffee bean grinder. Excellent spice
>> grinder.  I use it (with a gas mask on) to powder dried Habanero and
>> Chipotle peppers for my Nuclear Nightmare hot sauce.
>>
>> John
>
>Thanks for posting this, John. I bought a cheapie gel disk ice cream maker
>last year but never did try to make ice cream. You recipe moved me away from
>procrastination and I dragged the thing out and fired it up (so to speak). I
>made two batches of ice cream with it, the first using your recipe
>(substituting sugar for the artificail sweetner) and another using a custard
>ice cream base (chocolate, too!). Your recipe was pretty good but I liked
>the one made from the custard base better. Of course, it took longer to make
>as well.

You're welcome.  I've been wearing mine out.  At least a batch a day.
And with the Splenda, my BG doesn't even wiggle.  I like frozen
custard too but it takes so long to make that it's for special
occasions.  Of course, I have to do it from scratch.

>
>The ise cream maker is a piece of crap, though. Really only makes ice
>pudding. I had to freeze it in the freezer after mixing to get the ice cream
>really frozen. I'm still considering whether or not I want to keep making it
>badly enough to spring for the maker you provided the link for but I'm
>leaning towards it. The ice cream is very good and rivals some of the three
>and a half dollar a pint stuff I've had before. My favorite store bought ice
>cream is Godiva White Chocolate and Raspberry.

Sho'nuff.  I can't stand the thickeners and gooey extenders that they
put in most all commercial ice cream these days.  I had one of those
freeze-the-doohickey-things-in-the-freezer gadgets.  Tried it once,
salvaged the motor and tossed the rest.

>
>Also, I read a couple of places that said that the consistency of the ice
>cream will very depending up whether or not you use sugar or artifical
>sweetner and how much sugar one uses.

That's probably true to an extent with the others but Splenda is
designed to behave physically and chemically just like sugar except in
the digestive tract.  Most of it is, in truth, frothed dextrose. It
takes only about 1/700th the amount of Sucralose to make the same
sweet as a given amount of sugar so they have to bulk it out with
something.  Dextrose isn't so diabetes friendly but I weighed a cup of
the stuff and it only came out to a few grams.  Mostly air.

Overwhelmingly, both the texture and mouth feel of ice cream comes
from the butter content and the entrained air, the "overrun".  Too
little overrun and it tastes heavy and feels dense.  Too much and it's
frothy and tasteless.

After plain vanilla, my favorite is coffee ice cream.  No wait,
they're tied neck and neck.  Hmmm, gonna go make some after this post
:-)  Next is cherry vanilla.  To that same recipe I use the bamix to
puree a 6 or 8 oz jar of maraschino cherries, drain thoroughly (not
necessary if the sugar syrup is OK for you) and dump in.  I like to
puree them until they're mush with essentially no chunks.  Add a touch
of snowball cherry concentrate and some food color and there you go.
The Snowball concentrate is not sweetened.  It is pure cherry flavor.
A l'il dab'll do ya.

Something else that's just wonderful is a cherry fizz.  Take some of
the highest carbonated water you can find (I jack the pressure up on
my soda fountain to about 120 PSI from the normal 80), bottled soda
water if all else fails.  Put a bit of that cherry flavor and some
splenda in the fizz.  Stir and serve on crushed ice.  Damn that's good
and no calories.

I love that well enough that I'm working on a small system that uses
paintball gun CO2 refillable tanks and makes maybe a gallon of water
at a time.  Something that will fit nicely in my RV's storage
compartment.

John