Best ice cream might come out of your own kitchen

Mention the words "homemade ice cream" and a flurry of excitement will bubble up around you.

Straight from the home ice cream maker, be it electric or hand-cranked, it's a show-stopping dessert that delights with its velvety texture and impresses with its fresh ingredients.

With the Fourth of July fast approaching, we're far enough into summer that this particular treat is certain to draw appreciative applause for the home cook.

And, unlike pies or cakes, which require precision measuring and steady hands, making ice cream is a forgiving process and simpler than you might expect. It is also nearly as addicting as the treat that results.

Catherine Enfield, a Sacramento state worker who blogs about food on munchiemusings.com, started making ice cream about four years ago after acquiring a Krups ice cream maker from her best friend.

"Someone had given it to her as a wedding gift," Enfield said. "She's not a big cook."

Enfield has experimented with the ice cream maker every summer since then. For her, the joy is in the inventiveness it affords. She can play with flavor – like coconut-pineapple lemon-grass ice cream (she loved it, but some people thought it tasted a bit too medicine-y) – and texture.

Enfield, 45, prefers the texture of homemade ice cream to the firmer store-bought varieties.

"It's creamier, and I like it when it's fresh out of the ice cream maker," Enfield said.

As it turns out, that's the best way to enjoy homemade ice cream.

Unlike commercial ice cream, which often has additives to ensure that it can withstand the challenges of distribution and shelf time, homemade ice cream tastes best the day it's made, said Phillip Tong, professor of dairy science at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and president of the American Dairy Science Association.

"You don't need those ingredients to give you longer shelf life," he said. "The next day, it never has the right texture."

That's because ice crystals grow as homemade ice cream sits in the freezer. Commercial ice creams are frozen at between 22 and 25 degrees Fahrenheit, then go into a blast hardening tunnel at minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, instantly halting ice crystal growth.

Making ice cream at home has its advantages. Cooks can formulate recipes according to their liking, adding fresh fruit or preserves or substituting lower-fat dairy products like half-and-half in place of heavy cream.

"One of the things you do in homemade ice cream is you don't incorporate as much air as store-bought products," Tong said, adding that typical brands are about 50 percent air. "So (even a lower fat homemade ice cream) will still be rich."

Want to practically guarantee rich, creamy ice cream with about half the fat? Try making gelato.

The Italian ice cream has less milkfat and about 20 percent or less air by volume than American ice cream, meaning every bite has that decadent, palate-coating mouth feel.

F.W. Pearce, co-owner of Ciao Bella gelato and sorbet, said that like ice cream, making gelato isn't difficult and doesn't require machinery other than a home ice cream maker.

"If you master one technique you can make all kinds of flavors," said Pearce, who recently co-wrote "The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato and Sorbetto: Bold, Fresh Flavors To Make at Home."

The notion of learning to make a custard base and varying ingredients to add dimension is the premise behind "Spice Dreams: Flavored Ice Creams and Other Frozen Treats."

Authors Sara Engram and Katie Luber, who own the organic spice company The Seasoned Palate, show cooks how to conjure up desserts like brown sugar and spiced banana ice cream and chili-orange-chocolate sorbet.

"Part of what the book does is give you tools to make the best ice cream and give you the courage to color outside the lines," Engram said in a phone interview from her Baltimore office.

From a chocolate base springs dark chocolate-anise ice cream. Or swap out the anise for cloves, cinnamon or cardamom.

"All of which would be delicious," she said.

Innovation can go too far, however. Engram and Luber had a few flavor flops while testing recipes for the book.

Green pea sorbet – terrible. The worst was beet, ginger and rosemary ice cream.

Colorful, yes. Good, no.

"It's our horror story around the office," Engram said. "It tasted like frozen borscht."

Ice cream flavor pairings have become something of a creative outlet for Sacramento chocolatier Ginger Elizabeth Hahn, leading to a loyal customer base in the summer months.

From May to October, she offers frozen treats like the popular blackberry violet Parisian macaron ice cream sandwich.

On second Saturdays, sundaes are the focus. For $7, you can get a dish featuring combinations like Earl Grey ice cream, buttermilk ice cream, toffee soaked cake, fresh Bing cherries, black sesame seed toffee crumble – and that's just the July 10 offering. The sundae menu changes each time.

"It's really just fun to come up with things, and everyone has been loving them," she said.

Hahn will teach an ice cream class July 24 in which participants will learn how to make Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream and strawberry sorbet at home. The $35 class includes a free chocolate tasting and 10 percent off at her store that day.

As Hahn well knows, a delicious, homemade ice cream – like the buttermilk or crème fraîche variety she loves spinning – can make for an impressive dessert.

"When you have company, all you need is strawberries and some angel food cake and you're ready to go," she said.

Call The Bee's Niesha Lofing, (916) 321-1270.