Ok, I tried the About.com recipe, which was essentially chocolate milk, sweetened condensed milk and cool whip. (I added some HersheyÂs syrup to make it more chocolate-y). It didnÂt turn out to be what I hoped for, and given the ingredients, I know why - itÂs really more like ice milk than ice cream. It didnÂt freeze well in the ice cream maker, instead staying at a WendyÂs Frosty consistency  and thatÂs kind of what it tasted like, too (which isnÂt bad of course, just not what I was going for) When I put it in the freezer, it froze very solid, too solid. Taking it out of the container was like a granita. the next time we're in this "predicament" of too much chocolate milk, I'll try a recipe with more fat, either from cream or eggs. Until then, I have a stash of this ice milk in the freeze which will make quite a few awesome milk shakes...

I really like Alton Browns Serious Vanilla Ice cream. I've used Brown Sugar Rum Peach Jam in place of the preserves..No the ice cream doesn't taste like it has peach anything in it...it just gives it that je ne sais quoi... I've made this one in the KA bowl too Chocolate Coconut Milk Ice Cream she also has a Pumpkin one I want to try. You could sub cream or half n half for the coconut milk. My kids don't really like ice creams with alot of cream..they prefer it's texture, mouth feel like store bought..They don't appreciate the mouth feel of frozen cream!!!!! I find it delish and appreciate it greatly!!! And because it's so rich, much less satisfies me.

We have a hand-crank Donvier we got when we were married in 1995 that is almost constantly in use from about the 4th of July to mid-September. (The brand-name one is overpriced. Get a clone, which can be had for under $20 on sale.) DH wants an electric and I may get him one for his birthday (which is 2 days after Christmas LOL) if end-of-summer sales yield any REALLY good prices on reliable machines. Here's the base recipe we use, from the Ben & Jerry's book... I don't think you could GET any simpler, and it's surprisingly good. We pretty much never use a custard base because our kitchen is not air conditioned, and diddling around making custard in a 90-odd degree kitchen is officially Not Worth It in our book. For a 1 quart ice cream maker, combine 1 can sweetened, condensed milk (many of us remember it as "Eagle milk") with 2 cups light cream, a splash of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt. Do NOT leave out the salt! Stir well, chill at least 2 hours before putting in the ice cream maker. You can substitute full-fat ("cream top") vanilla yogurt for half the cream but it doesn't really save you much calorically, just does interesting things to the flavor and can make you feel a little virtuous LOL! Lower-fat yogurts give a strange chalky texture and unsweetened yogurt makes for very sour product. (Found from unpleasant experience that just chucking a quart of yogurt straight from the container into the ice cream maker, no matter how yummy it is normally, does not make nice frozen yogurt, oh no not at all!) There's a simple plain base, now start playing... A super easy way to get a delicious fruity flavor ice cream is to substitute 1 cup of a good strong jam for 1 cup of the cream. (I don't recommend doing both jam and yogurt and eliminating all the cream. The result came out... the only word I can find for it is "stretchy".) The jam concentrates the fruit's flavor; warm "seedy" jams like raspberry or blackberry until they're liquidy and push them through a strainer if you don't want to be picking seeds out of your teeth for days. If you want fruit pieces, line a cookie sheet with the nonstick foil or baking parchment (or a Silpat if you're blessed with one), spread out a layer of finely chopped fruit with the pieces not touching, or minimally touching, and freeze rock solid. Add the fruit pieces at the very end of churning. Toast any nuts you wish to add for a stronger, "nuttier" flavor; and grating frozen chocolate bars on the largest holes of a grater (use an oven mitt to hold the chocolate so your body heat doesn't melt it) gives a better result IMO than using chocolate chips, even the mini kind. If you want to use something like butterscotch chips, freeze them and break them up in small batches in a food processor on "pulse". Good use for one of those mini-chopper types. Remember that your liquid ice cream/sorbet/yogurt mixture has to be almost sickeningly-sweet in its unfrozen state to taste "normal" as a finished product - the cold numbs your taste buds so all the flavors have to be STRONG. Oh, and filling the churning chamber more than about 2/3 full, 3/4 at the most, can be a recipe for a Big Sticky Mess. So don't do it. Honey-sweetened ice cream does not store well more than 24 hours - it gets crumbly and weird-textured, so if you want to do something with honey, have enough people around to scarf it down within hours of curing. Alcohol will interfere in the solidifying process so if you really load it up even with an overnight cure you may not get more than a "soft serve" texture. We bought a whole slew of nice little (not quite 1/2 cup) lidded plastic containers into which we portion the ice cream while it's still in the "soft serve" state. Pop them in the freezer and in 4 hours it's solidified enough to have the proper ice cream "mouthfeel", although I like 8 hours' curing time. If we don't pre-portion it DH will go WAY overboard! Oh, and the famous Mark Bittman/New York Times "eggless ice cream" was IMNSHO utterly REVOLTING.

Hi Cheryl! This one is T and T. I have made it several times. Hot Buttered Rum Mix 1 lb. light brown sugar 1 lb. confectioner's sugar 1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter - room temp 1 qt vanilla ice cream - slightly melted Light rum ground nutmeg Combine the first 4 ingredients with a mixer and store in the freezer. For one drink, put 2 tbsp of ice cream mixture in a mug. Add 1 shot of rum and fill the mug with boiling water. Garnish the top with nutmeg. Enjoy! Stacy