After the overwhelming success of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, a cookbook was released showing us how to make some of our favourite ice cream flavours from the duel. However I think I should make sure that everyone knows that this is quite an old title, in fact it was published in 1987. So the newest flavours won't be making an appearance, but don't let that discourage you, despite the books age, it's very nicely put together. With the colourful cartoony graphics and straightforward layouts. And some of the most popular and tasty Ben & Jerry's flavours are here too.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Oreo Mint, Maple Walnut, Mocha Swiss Chocolate Almond, Raspberry, Butter Pecan, New York Super Fudge Chunk, French Vanilla, Honey Apple Raisin Walnut and many more flavours are debuted. The variety of different ice creams and sorbets to make is good. And a balanced amount of fruit and sweeter recipes are presented too.
Making the ice cream is very simple and easy. All the recipes refer to the US cup measurements, but no metric equivalents, worth keeping in my mind if you don't have any US cups. Nearly every recipe requires a sweet cream base to be prepared before hand. You can make this in three different ways but the best method requires double cream, large eggs, sugar and milk. Ingredients we can all afford and obtain easily. When preparing some recipes you'll have to make some elements like cookie dough, fudge ect separately by referring to another page. Overall I found the recipes easy to follow and quick to prepare.
The results? Well so far, so good. I haven't made a bad batch of ice cream, yes the Andrew James Professional Ice Cream Maker plays a big part in this I'm sure. I've tried my hand at five flavours and the trickiest one was the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough due to not knowing when to incorporate the dough into the ice cream mixture. But it turned out perfectly and all the flavours I've made have tasted amazing too! Do they taste like the real thing, I can't comment on all the flavours but for the ones I have tried they do. Of course you don't have to follow a recipe line by line, adding and experimenting with your favourites is always fun.
If you want to get more creative with the use of ice cream. With drinks, sundaes and sauce recipes. A range of recipes can be found towards the end of the book. I have yet to try any of these but a good variety is here.
Recipes aren't the only thing to read, short history lessons of how the Ben and Jerry's company was born and grew and bios are scattered and are very enjoyable. Definitely suites the book well and I found it all interesting.
My only complaint is the lack of any noticeable update to the title. A newer edition you'd have thought would have been published with the latest and greatest flavours from Ben & Jerry's.
Overall I have enjoyed making some of the flavours from the Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. They are easy to follow and quick to make but most importantly taste amazing.
