Was It Worth It: Ice Cream Maker Edition

One of the first things our allergist told us to avoid was ice cream shops. This was the good old days when we thought my kid was only allergic to peanuts. Why should we avoid ice cream shops? Well, there’s usually at least one flavor with peanuts (because as stated previously, peanuts and peanut butter are God’s gift to the culinary world) and while usually the scoop is cleaned (“cleaned” is a bit of stretch, “dunked into murky water” would be a more appropriate description) between customers, do we really trust the teenager behind the counter with not contaminating every flavor with deadly delicious peanut protein? No. The answer is clearly no.

Okay, so no ice cream shops. At the grocery store, if you check the ingredient labels of most ice creams, in addition to the allergens included in it, there is almost always a warning that they may contain tree nuts and peanuts, or are at least processed near them if not on some of the same equipment. With ice cream shops off the list and pints of ice cream from the store off the list, making my own ice cream at home was on my horizon even before she had anaphylaxis to milk. So, this week, our last week on ridiculously expensive kitchen appliances that I’ve bought since my kid was diagnosed with food allergies is:

ICE CREAM MAKERS

There’s a wide variety of ice cream makers- from rock salt manual ones to mixer attachments that you pop in your freezer to ones that chill and churn at the push of a button. We decided to go all in and get the real deal after our mixer attachment sprung a leak and bled blue liquid in our cabinet. It never worked all that well anyways. It wasn’t able to cool down the ice cream enough before the bowl melted, so by the time it froze the rest of the way in the freezer we were left with icy cream… instead the creamy ice cream dream. It tasted ok, but it was impossible to scoop without defrosting each time. When I realized we would be making nondairy ice cream at home, I thought the only chance we had at something creamy delicious was to get the Rolls Royce of ice cream machines. 

So shiny!

Is it helpful in the kitchen?

If you are making ice cream: Yes.

If you are not making ice cream: No.

The manual suggested making frozen drinks and other nonsense. But really, other than making ice cream or sorbet what are you actually going to use your ice cream maker for? Nothing. It’s going to sit in your cabinet and wait to churn some vegan milk.

I think it does produce better ice cream than the stand mixer did. It’s able to get the temperature lower than the frozen bowl did, but the end result still turns out icy. I think there’s just not enough fat in my nondairy milks to make something as creamy as the real deal ice cream.

Downsides?

It’s giant. 

The kind that we got, that electronically freezes the ice cream as it churns, is enormous. It is literally a tiny freezer. The quart of ice cream that is makes is about 1/8 of the total volume of the box. It is *slightly* smaller than the box it came in. But it wins the award for the biggest countertop appliance.

It’s heavy.

After all, it is a tiny freezer. You may not have to churn the ice cream yourself, but you will burn some calories lugging it around.

It takes a while to churn.

Because it has to go from room temperature to Antarctica, it takes 45 min to 1 hour to churn most of our ice creams.

What allergies is it good for?

• Milk- obviously.
• Egg- yep, clearly.
• Peanuts and tree nuts- those guys have weaseled there way into possibly contaminating pretty much all ice creams, so the safest bet seems to make it at home. Plus, where else are you going to find sun butter ice cream?

SO: IS IT WORTH IT?

I don’t know guys. Maybe I just haven’t found the best vegan ice cream recipe, but even the recipes from my favorite nondairy cookbook have been a little bit of a bust. On the ice/cream spectrum, they have fallen heavily on the ice side. The taste has been good (it’s non dairy milk and sugar, what’s not to like?) but I have literally had to use a knife to jab at the frozen block to dislodge a little scoop of shaved ice out. Plus, I just found Oatly nondairy ice cream that doesn’t use tree nuts or peanuts or milk or eggs in any of its flavors and it was smooth and amazing and now my wife wants to buy stock in the company. So, I’ll continue to test out new vegan ice cream recipes in search of one that tastes like the real thing, but at least there’s a backup that we will soon be part owners of.