Blenders
Kitchen blenders are very common in most homes today as are, for example, home ice makers. In my experience, a kitchen blender is essential to have available when making homemade ice cream. Some types of fruit need processing in a blender to ensure the right consistency for an ice cream mixture.
For example, blueberries in my blueberry yoghurt ice cream recipe here.
Then there are ice cream recipes that use nuts as ingredients and sometimes you don’t want to just add chopped nuts 5 minutes before the end of batch freezing in your ice cream maker. Instead you want the nuts to be a part of the main ice cream mixture adding their color and flavor before the freezing process even begins as with pistachio ice cream for example. In this recipe, it’s important to blend the pistachios with the eggs, milk and sugar before making the custard base. The resulting mixture is a wonderfully creamy green and has a great nutty texture.
Other uses of a blender in an ice cream recipe include:
- blending fresh mint leaves with sugar to give a smooth mixture for making homemade fresh mint ice cream - one of my favorite 'fresh from the garden' recipes
- making a purée of fresh ripe mangoes when making a tropical sorbet
Having sung the praises of using a blender for ice cream making, it's important to realise that there are actually instances where you would NOT use a blender for homemade ice cream. These include::
- Strawberry ice cream – in this recipe it is iimportant to mash the strawberries; blending them would ruin the consistency of the final strawberry ice cream you make;
- Pumpkin and maple syrup ice cream – again the key ingredient, the freshly cooked and cooled pumpkin, must be mashed and not puréed. Like strawberry ice cream, it's the consistency that is important.
In truth, using a blender in ice cream making - as with all cooking - is down to experience and to some degree personal preference. The information on this page is intended just as a guideline - the rest is up to you!