Home Made Ice Cream – Is It Cheaper To Make Or Buy? – Top Tips

Electric Ice Cream makers are a great way to make ice cream. But I’m always being asked whether or not it’s cheaper to make yourself or to buy it. Two answers to this, Yes and No. But the great thing is you Can make it cheaper if that’s what you want.

For me it’s always been cheaper to make, that was one of the key considerations. My kids eat ice cream several times a week, even in winter. I use all sorts of things. I use left over fruit, frozen fruit and even tinned fruit, or a combination of all of the above.

Picking free seasonal fruit like blackberries and blueberries helps, but I know not everyone can do this, so I just buy frozen, or when I see a good deal on fresh fruit, buy it and freeze it myself.

Frozen and tinned fruit work fine. Whether you put them through the mixture or serve on the side or top of the ice cream. Drain off the juice from the can if you want to keep it lower fat. Here’s some other things that will help your ice cream.

1. Once your ice cream has defrosted, do not re freeze. The texture will be awful, and there is also a danger of food poisoning.

2. Sometimes I make my ice cream manually, especially when I want to entertain the kids for an afternoon. I get them involved and helping. Mostly though I use an electric ice cream maker, when you make ice cream several times a week, the hands on approach of manual making can be laborious and time consuming.

3. Remember that home made ice cream will not have all the preservatives that store bought has in it. This means that it will not last as long. So try to use within a couple of weeks in the freezer.

4. Don’t serve too cold, you’ll get a headache! So leave out of the freezer for 10-15 minutes before eating.

5. Freeze all left over chocolate and chocolate sweets (you can use these when you want to make a choc flavour version). You can grate them over the top for a lovely effect.

6. Warning! Blueberries when frozen come out like little pellets, so don’t put them in whole, crush them before adding them to any mixture, or better still, just serve them with the ice cream.

Home made ice cream tastes great, and you know exactly what goes into it. Involving the children if you have them is good fun and starts getting them interested in how things are made. They love to bring it around to their friends houses to show off. All around great value for money.