Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book

Great book, has all of the Ben and Jerrys recipes. But follow exactly. I added extra cream and got the greasy feel in the top of my mouth.

I have used the book and had good ice cream. I used skim milk and splenda so it is not as cream as I would like but then I am low carbing it. My parents also bought this book and tried making ice cream. Theirs was wonderful from what they said over the phone. Mother used whole milk and real sugar so the extra fat in milk should have made the ice cream a bit softer. The less fat the more like an ice cube while the more fat you use the more creamy it will be. Use whole milk and the heavy cream for softer ice cream. There is no such thing as dietary fat to my knowledge so skim milk will make hard ice cream. Let it sit out a bit before eating and it will be fine.

Overall, this is a good book for making ice cream but not heavy on the technical stuff. As a chemical engineer there is not a lot of detail I don't already know so all I care about is that the ice cream is what I want.

As for cooking eggs... I am not too worried. Buy fresh eggs for your ice cream and I don't see a problem happening. Use old eggs and I expect you will be spending a lot of time sitting on the toilet. Some like slowly heating the egg base to make a custard base some don't care. The eggs are used as a emulsification agent to hold the fat and water together. Use fresh eggs and you should be fine. If not be careful not to make scrambled eggs in the base.

Initially, I was very excited for this recipe book, but after reading it, I realized that none of the recipes with eggs had you cook them. - just mix the raw eggs and put them in the ice cream maker. No thanks. Don't think I will be able to use any of the base recipes. May use the interesting flavors with different bases from a different cookbook.

I have a number of ice cream recipe books, and I also have my mother's custard-style ice cream recipe from way back. While I love custard-style ice cream, it is a lot of work, and sometimes I just want to throw together some ingredients and toss them into my MUSSO LUSSINO 4080 (the best ice cream maker there is for the home). That's where this cookbook shines. The recipes are great, and very fast.

One caution: Most of the recipes use raw eggs. I personally don't care, since I buy only locally produced, organic eggs from free-range, non-debeaked chickens. I figure that how happy any animal is, whether human or beast, makes a huge difference in its health, and so far I have never had any problems.

However, if you have concerns, you can use pasteurized egg products. Or you can use an excellent alternative cookbook, The Ultimate Ice Cream Book, which has many recipes that don't require eggs at all. Just be aware that eggs make a big (positive) difference in taste over recipes that don't use eggs.

Nice collection of recipes for my ice cream maker since KitchenAid doesn't include alot and we love Ben and Jerry's just figured I could make my own. Recipes are perfect! I make them in the KitchenAid ice cream makerKitchenAid KICA0WH Ice Cream Maker Attachment and save money by making my own for a larger group - those little pints don't go far with a group.