Ice Cream Recipes for the Ice Cream Maker

We love ice cream, well who doesn't. There's something different about home made ice cream, its creamier, smoother, once tried you always have second helpings. Ice cream is best enjoyed once it has been out of the freezer for ten minutes, many people drag it out of the cold abyss and dig in. If you are one of those people you can never appreciate the smoothness of the frozen delight.

Here's a couple of recipes we enjoy.

Bourneville Chocolate Ice Cream
150g of caster sugar
250ml of milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon of cocoa
3 egg yolks beaten
50g of Cadbury's Bourneville Chocolate (any chocolate would do, variety is the spice of life)
500ml of double cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence or flavouring
I use an ice cream maker but I guess you can make it without by whipping your mix prior to freezing then whipping it every half hour through out the freezing process.

Combine the sugar, milk, salt and cocoa powder in a pan over a medium heat. Bring to a simmer, be very careful you don't boil this mix.

Place the eggs into a bowl or large jug, slowly, carefully trickle a little of the hot simmering liquid into the eggs and mix. (this bit is crucial otherwise you get scrambled eggs) Return the mix to the pan, if for some reason you get a couple bits of 'cooked' egg then fish it out, it wont affect the end result.

Simmer the mix until it thickens. Stir in the chocolate till it is melted and allow your mix to cool

Once cool, stir in the cream and vanilla and put into your ice cream maker for about 40 minutes. Now once this comes out of my ice cream maker its still quite soft and runny, I don't know if this is a flaw of my maker or this is how they all are so you need to put your 'ice cream' into the freezer for a few hours.

When you are ready to serve don't forget to bring your ice cream out of the freezer and allow it to sit for about ten minutes before you dish up.


Toffee Ice Cream
This recipe is so easy and versatile. I use different chocolate bars for different variations. One day this will be Toffee Crisp Ice Cream, and another day it will be Crunchie Ice cream, you get the idea. The brown sugar in this recipes, once cooked, will give a very convincing toffee flavour (lick the spoon).

you need
1 Table spoon of butter
200g of dark brown sugar
2 eggs beaten
175ml milk
175ml double cream
125ml double cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
Ice Cream maker or follow method in above recipe.

Heat the brown sugar, milk, 175ml of cream in a pan. Bring to a simmer. Once again put your eggs in a separate bowl and trickle in some of the warm mix, run it down the side of the bowl so it cools a little. Again watch out for cooked eggs! Return the eggs and mix to the pan and simmer this mix until it thickens.

Remove from heat and allow to cool. Once cool, stir in remaining cream and vanilla. Break up one or two bars of your choice and add to this cooled mix.

Run this mix in the ice cream maker for about 40 minutes then pour into a freezer dish. Freeze for several hours before needed.

For serving take this ice cream out of the freezer ten minutes before you are going to eat it.

Meet Your Maker

There are 'makers' for everything!

Well there are and they are all living inside my kitchen except one. Thanks to my friend I am going to end up with yet another maker, a yoghurt maker. I wasn't going to but I will probably succumb...

I cant see my kitchen worktops, and my cupboards are full.

The makers are taking over slowly, one by one.

I have a bread maker, which doubles (or trebles or maybe quadruples) up as a jam maker, pizza base maker and jam maker.
Then there is the ice cream maker which I am using a lot at the moment. I have a smoothie maker which was leaking but now with a bit on imagination is fixed. I broke it because I put it in the dishwasher without taking the blades out so the seal ring and it seals no more. I got some plumbers tape, you know that white stuff that goes a bit stringy, and its all better now back to making smoothies.
I got a rice maker, it doubles up to make something else I forgot what ... maybe its porridge.
Oh I don't have a chip maker or chip pan, cant stand those wretched things, nasty, stinky, have you ever put one in a dishwasher?
I did have a pie maker, it make gorgeous neat deep pies in 8 minutes, sealed them and they were the most delicious pies I had ever eaten. Trouble about the pie make was that it was a b****r to clean so I got rid of it. the burger maker quickly followed suit. Ooh what I would do with a pie maker or burger maker with removable plates.

Anyhow, please tell me about your makers, I am always on the look out for new ideas.

Oh and while you are at it, shall I get that yoghurt maker?

Funny Faces

Thing about Sol is that she likes to pull a funny face now and again! Lately she has been doing it each time I have my camera out, I have some amusing photos which I sure she will be awfully embarrassed about when she grows up.


Look carefully at this photo, I didn't notice while I was taking it that summer was laying under the stone pulling faces.

Easter Parade

The Easter Parade in photos, held in Bangor, Co Down on Easter Monday.

Easter Egg Hunt

The Easter Bunny! Actually his name is Dougal and he is the black lionhead rabbit which belongs to the children.

Well, its ages past Easter but I have loads of different things to blog about .....

First things first lets get the Easter Egg hunt out of the way. Every year we have an Easter egg hunt in out garden and our neighbours garden for the six children we have. Well this year Mag hid the eggs so I cant really count him as an 'egg seeker'. Great fun was had by all and of course lots of chocolate was consumed that day.

In the afternoon we went into the village as they were having a little Easter fun afternoon aimed at children. the kids got to hold little chicks and pet some other creatures.

Round up in few words as possible

This is Monday again, start of the Easter holidays for our schooled counterparts.
Every day last week I had planned on taking the children to the local farm and everyday it rained. The day it didn't rain our eldest child was marching in Belfast with his Boys Brigade for their annual batallion parade.
So today, once again we thought we would brave the farm, and once again the rain has arrived. Not that it's a major issue getting wet and possibly muddy, but six children (two of them not mine) getting wet and muddy isn't fun to deal with.
There's not an awful lot to report, Mag had a tummy bug on Friday morning and Seb felt he needed to spend the day in bed so it was a very 'non event' day.
As for me I am fed up with nagging all of the children to keep their bedrooms tidy and pick up their clothes. I am toying with the idea of giving myself a break from nagging and ignoring the bedrooms and let them get really messy to see if anyone notices and starts to pick up. Has anyone tried this? Does it work, or is it just more hard work in the long run?
Sent from my iPhone

St Patrick's Day Climb!

Yesterday was St Patrick's Day. After a slow start to the day we decided to go for a walk up to Scrabo Tower. Scrabo Tower is built on Scrabo Hill and you can read more about it on this website http://scrabotower.com/scrabo-tower.html.

No point knocking, there is no one at home!

Its quite a treck up to the tower and around the quarries, this is what happened afterwards.
Worn out.

Resting.