» Gas Grill & Outdoor Grill » Kitchen Islands » Making Ice Cream » Pot Racks Let's Make Ice Cream Making ice cream can be a fun and rewarding process - especially on a hot July day. Different people have different tastes in ice cream. The best part about making ice cream yourself is that you can vary the ingredients to suit your preferences. The only thing you need other than the ingredients is an ice cream machine. One thing that most people like is smooth ice cream. You can improve the smoothness of your ice cream by stirring the mixture frequently once it has been added to the machine. Once the liquid is added, some of the liquid can turn into ice crystals while the rest remains liquid. As it solidifies, you will want to keep the crystals small and numerous. If these crystals become too big, the ice cream will be hard and chunky. To of the ice cream ingredients, cream and milk help to make the ice cream smooth and light. Cream helps to prevent the ice crystals discussed in the paragraph above from growing too rapidly. It also helps to make the ice cream feel smooth and also helps to hold in air to make the ice cream a little fuller. You will also want to be careful not to overdue the amount of cream that you put in your ice cream mixture. To be safe, try using a lower fat dairy product. Milk, like cream, helps to trap air and contributes to the smoothness of the ice cream by keeping crystal size small. The best type of milk to use is condensed or evaporated milk. These types of products are rich in milk sugar that lowers the freezing point of the mixture. If you add to much of any of the dry milk products, however, you will end up with ice cream that has a sand paper-like feel. Two other ingredients that improve creaminess and smoothness are fruit preserves and eggs. Preserves can be swapped for sugar. Sugar also lowers the freezing point of the ice cream. To prevent ice cream from being too hard, you may want to substitute honey for sugar. Alcohol also has an effect that is similar to sugar. Here are some ingredients that you can use to play with your mixture. In the next article, we will take a look at the rest of the process of making ice cream.