The Ultimate Ice Cream Book: Over 500 Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, Drinks, and More

Very few commercial ice creams can stand up to homemade. Oh, I know. I have my commercial favorites too. When you make your own, however, you're in control of everything. Too sweet? Cut down the sugar a little. Too rich? Substitute half and half or milk for some of the cream. You want a flavor that doesn't come in the stores? Then it's time to bite the bullet and make your own. You'll find details on ice cream machines in this book, as well as the differences between (and pros and cons of) ice cream made with and without eggs, details on flavoring ice creams, and tips for making "mix-ins" (cookies, crackers, etc.) that'll stay crunchy longer. You'll even find three recipes for ice cream cones in here!This cookbook packs a lot of punch into a surprisingly small amount of space. Let's use Pumpkin Ice Cream as an example. Below it you have four variations listed: Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream, Pumpkin Raisin Ice Cream, Pumpkin Rum Ice Cream, and Pumpkin Seed Ice Cream. Mr. Weinstein could have done this a number of ways. He could have printed up a new recipe for each variation. He could have left them out entirely. Or he could have put the traditional paragraph of "oh, and you could try adding this, and this, or this." In the first case you pay more for a cookbook that could have been smaller. In the middle case, we would have been bereft of many extra fantastic recipes. In the last case, when we sat down to pick a recipe and make out our grocery list, we would have failed to read the last paragraph, and we'd eternally find ourselves saying "Oh, next time," without ever making the variations. So this is PERFECT. I wish more cookbooks did this. The variations are 1-3 sentence quick directions, but easy to pick out and implement. They're also listed as individual recipes in the index, so you won't have trouble finding them if you lose them. You'll find a fantastic array of flavors. Apple Butter Ice Cream, for instance. Avocado Ice Cream, with a Gazpacho recipe to accompany it--I guess you can eat ice cream for dinner! The Banana Ice Cream and the Banana Ice Cream Philadelphia Style (no eggs) come with a stunning array of variations. When Mr. Weinstein suggests Bubble Gum Ice Cream, he even provides the toll-free number of a company that sells bubble gum flavoring! Now that's service for you. The book also includes sorbets, granitas, toppings, and ice cream drinks.In all, this is the best ice cream book I've ever laid my hands on, and we have at least four such cookbooks. Mr. Weinstein has created a true treasure of ice cream creation, and deserves no less than a full five stars for his glorious work.

The Ultimate Ice Cream Book is the only ice cream "cook book" you'll ever need. The Ultimate Ice Cream Book contains hundreds of recipes. The book begins with an introduction on the two different types of ice cream recipes (custard style-with eggs and Philadelphia style-no eggs), helpful information on ice cream machines, mix ins, and finally tips on drinks. After browsing through the introduction you will flip through so many pages of different flavors of ice cream you will have a hard time chosing which kind to make. There are recipes for bubble gum, banana, pineapple, peanut butter, key lime, and white chocolate ice creams just to name a few. Don't let all the exotic flavors worry you. There are recipes for plain vanilla (4 recipes for vanilla in fact), chocolate, and strawberry. As if that weren't enough, there are sorbet recipes, ice cream cone recipes, shake and drink recipes, plus sauce and topping recipes. There is even helpful information in the recipes for finding some of the ingredients. Take the bubble gum ice cream recipe. Have no idea where to find bubble gum flavor? Not a problem. They list a company along with their phone number where you may order bubble gum flavoring. You can't go wrong with this ice cream book.

I just got my new ice cream maker and I purchased this book and the book "Gelato!" to get started. I found this book to be my favorite of the two. It is fairly straightforward and no-frills, and it's not the type of book to sit and read in an armchair ("Gelato!" is that type of book, with a history of Gelato making and rich text and accompanying photos). But this book has several recipes (rich to not-as-rich) for the basic flavors, and offers several variations on most of the recipes (such as grapefruit-kiwi sorbet after the main recipe for grapefruit sorbet). Most of the recipes appear to be very easy to follow. If there is a complicated recipe, it's good bet he offers a simpler one for the same flavor, with a clear description of what the differences in your final product are likely to be. I haven't used my machine that much yet, but I have found the recipes I have tried from this book to be easy to make, with delicious results. It doesn't offer gelato recipes, but has many many ice cream, sorbet and frozen yogurt recipes. I think it will be a very useful companion to anyone's ice cream making at home.

Although this book has off-the-wall ice creams (like Red Bean, Pine Nut & Prune), Granitas (Beet! ), Sorbet (Kumquat? makes me pucker just thinking about it!), it also has traditional flavors in an easy to follow format with lots of variations for each recipe. There're also sauces and toppings, shakes & sodas. There are even 3 recipes for cones. I love this book - we borrowed it from the library, then had to get our own copy.