Fun with the Cuisinart Duo Ice Cream Maker

For those of you who aren't familiar with this pretty damned awesome machine, its a Flavor Duo™ Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker. I can make two different kinds of ice cream at the same time! And yeah, that is pretty damned cool!

Anyway, I've been working off the basic recipe for a little while, its a simple vanilla ice cream recipe but the best thing about vanilla is that it is really easy to spice right the heck up.

Its easy to whip up:
3/4 cup milk (the book calls for whole milk but come on now, who drinks whole milk anymore when its so fattening?)
2/3 cup sugar (I've used turbinado sugar before but it doesn't dissolve as easily)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

A key tip is to keep the ingredients as cold as possible.
Mix the milk and sugar together until the sugar fully dissolves, stir in the cream and the vanilla to taste. Pour into the machine, let it work for 20-25 minutes, add the chopped chocolate chips in during the last five minutes (tossing the chips into a chopper breaks them up and makes for a better ice cream). Once its all chilled as much as the machine will do it, transfer the thickening ice cream into another container and put it in the freezer to set up for a couple of hours.

I made a chocolate chip the other night that had a hint of cinnamon flavor added and it was just superb.

Tonight's flavor is mint chip and I'm not quite sure how it will come out. I screwed up one important thing and that is don't add the mint extract (which is in a 90% alcohol solution) until the last couple of minutes or you'll affect the mixture's ability to freeze. So my ice cream is in the freezer now, hopefully setting up and turning into beautiful and creamy yumminess.

Some other ones to try are the Eggnog Ice Cream, the full on, cooked Chocolate Ice Cream and the Fresh Strawberry. But there's also Pumpkin Spice, Chocolate Marshmellow Swirl (otherwise known as Rocky Road), Mocha Chip and then, down the road, Pistachio, Butter Pecan and Peanut Butter.

Yeah, the Duo is one helluva cool wedding present!