Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book

I bought this book back in the 1980s when it was first printed. It's so dog-eared and has food spills on it from years of use, I decided to buy a fresh copy. Homemade ice cream, for me, used to be a complex, time-consuming endeavor before this book. Ben and Jerry share their recipes and ice cream tips, which are absolutely simple to make. No cooking required. But let's address the raw egg issue and how I solved it. I read several comments about the raw eggs called for in the recipes. Since the 1980s I always made this ice cream with raw eggs and no illnesses. Maybe I'm just more paranoid as I get older, but I didn't want to use raw eggs this time. But I didn't want to leave the eggs out, as I think they are essential to the consistency of the ice cream. And I didn't want the hassle of cooking the recipe. My solution was using pasteurized shell eggs. I read some reviews here and elsewhere and found that you can purchase pasteurized shell eggs. A company called Davidson's makes them. They're not easy to find in the Bay Area where I live, but there was one store (Bristol Farms) that sold them in San Francisco. I bought a dozen there. Also, I read another comment in which the person called Ben and Jerry's and was told that they could use Egg Beaters in place of raw eggs. I've never used Egg Beaters for anything, but have seen them in my grocery store. They are eggs that have been cracked and pasteurized and put into a little carton. I couldn't find any "plain" Egg Beaters in my grocery store that didn't have seasoning in them, so I went with the Davidson's pasteurized shell eggs. They come in a container just like regular shell eggs. They ARE regular shell eggs, but they've gone through some process to eliminate bacteria that could make you sick. When you crack them, they are raw, but they are okay to eat raw. Davidson's has a web site ([...]) which will reassure you. With this raw egg issue out of the way, I want to say that this is the perfect ice cream book, especially if you're a fan of Ben and Jerry's and you like homemade ice cream. By the way, they have three basic sweet cream recipes. Two of those don't even require eggs; and many recipes incorporate the sweet cream base, such as Strawberry, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, etc., and you can choose which sweet cream base to use. I like the sweet cream base that uses the raw eggs, but that's my personal preference. However, I just made the sweet cream base with the condensed sweetened milk, and it was quite good. This book could use an update to include the flavors that were created over the last 20 years. But with some imagination, you can adapt some of them to match. For example, Chunky Monkey was not formulated when this book was written, but there is recipe for Banana ice cream. I made the banana ice cream and added 1/2 cup walnuts and 1/2 cup chocolate chunks. Ta-da! It is almost identical to Chunky Monkey. They also have some flavors that we might not have seen in the store, such as Maple Grape Nuts, Strawberry Coconut, Banana Peanut Butter, Beer Sorbet, Oreo Mint Cookie using chocolate ice cream, and a lot of others. They also have three recipes for chocolate ice cream: Ben's Chocolate, Jerry's Chocolate, and Light Chocolate. The simplicity of the recipes are what make this such a great book. Milk, cream, eggs, sugar and whatever other specific flavor ingredients needed. Mix 'em up and pour into the ice cream maker. A couple of recipes require you to chill the cream mix for a little while (Ben's Chocolate, for example), but most of them are mix the ingredients, pour into the ice cream maker, and 20-30 minutes later you've got your ice cream. These recipes are darn good. This gourmet ice cream is rich and tastes like a real professional made it. One note: They say to add your chunks (Heath Bars, cookies, chips, etc.) about 2 minutes before the ice cream is done. My ice cream maker Cuisinart ICE-20 Automatic 1-1/2-Quart Ice-Cream Maker, White doesn't like the big chunks--larger than a chocolate chip, so I add them after the ice cream finishes. The ice cream is usually still soft enough to use a big plastic spoon and stir in the chunks before putting into the containers, which I also bought from Amazon Plain White Pint Size Frozen Dessert Containers . This is a user-friendly book, which is entertaining and has silly illustrations. But the recipes are no-nonsense as far as working exactly as expected. Some of my favorite recipes are Oreo Mint Cookie (using either vanilla or chocolate ice cream--and I use Newman's Oreo-like cookies), Banana, Strawberry, Orange Cream Dream, Ben's Chocolate with almonds, Peanut Butter, Vanilla Malt and Butter Pecan, to name a few. I have not tried the Coconut yet, nor have I tried the sorbets. I also experimented with using some Girl Scout Cookies--breaking up the Peanut Butter sandwich cookies and putting them in sweet cream. Yum. Get yourself some pasteurized eggs (if you are concerned about raw eggs), and have fun making ice cream. Someone mentioned that this book, along with an ice cream maker would make a good gift. I agree. Good stuff!!

Great bang for your buck ice cream book. Not real heavy on the science but the recipes are simple and clearly explained and will yield great ice cream.

So many great recipes.

I love this little book. It has the recipe for one of my favorite ice cream flavors: Cherry Garcia. With numerous basic flavors, chocolate ice creams, sorbets, Ben & Jerry's greatest hits and some unconventional flavors (I would never think of making cantaloupe ice cream) there's something in here for everyone. Most recipes make a generous quart, which sometimes causes a small overflow in my 1.5 quart ice cream maker, Cuisinart ICE-21R Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker, Red . The ice cream tastes delicious, the sweet cream base being the star of the show. Unfortunately, all the recipes with eggs call for them raw, with no alternative instructions for cooking them. This doesn't bother me so much, but it does bother my husband. He did really like the beer sorbet when made with Guinness. Recently, I made the Raspberry ice cream; it came out a little tart, more like Raspberry-Lemon. The recipe calls for the juice of half a lemon. I think the intention was for the juice of half a hand squeezed lemon, and not one squeezed with the Amco 8-Inch Two-in-One Lemon Juicer/Squeezer . It was still tasty. There is more to the book than ice cream. There is the Ben & Jerry back story, a section on the science of ice cream, and sections of baked goods and desserts made with ice cream. There are tidbits of information complete with cartoons on the pages' margins which give the book a "fun" feel. I would have liked some information on frozen yogurt and gelato. However, I believe the book was published before Ben & Jerry's started making their frozen yogurts and I've never seen a gelato container with their name on it.

When I bought an ice-cream maker I set a low bar for myself: I might be able to make something worth eating after a few months. After bombing out with a couple of recipes from the machine user guide and failing to accurately deconstruct B&J recipes from the grocery store, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this book. I also couldn't believe that the recipes accurately recreate much of what B&J sells at the store. Some of the recipes are even better than the store bought versions which have a lot of added preservative ingredients. The Oreo Mint and Chocolate Covered Almonds Mocha stand out and are probably better than any ice-cream you can buy at the grocery store. You can easily simulate and improve on B&J's more recent thin mint ice-cream with the mint recipe and kroger's fudge enrobed cookies. On the other hand, this only covers B&J recipes into the 1980s. So if you want to simulate something later like Chunky Monkey, you will have improvise from the banana ice-cream recipe. I tried it and it wasn't remotely as good as the bought version. A few recipes seem like duds to me. But you will have to try everything for yourself. I'm not going to call them out. I prefer these recipes to the cooked style icecream in books like The Perfect Scoop, though that is good too. B&J icecream is not cooked and I feel that makes it much fresher and more flavorful. Since B&J uses raw eggs, I recommend you use the pasteurized eggs that come in a carboard container. I also think you just get a smoother, lighter end product with the carton eggs over fresh eggs.

Je pensais vraiment que ce livre n'avait d'attirant que la marque Ben & Jerry's mais j'avais absolument tort, Il est EXTRA! J'ai déjà composé qqs glaces et elles sont aussi bonnes en sortant de la turbine qu'après congélation (si on sort la glace 10mn avant consommation). Et ça en soi, c'est déjà une révolution😍 De plus, le livre est tellement bien fait qu'on peut se lancer soi-même dans la création de glaces. Je recommande à 100% ce livre de recettes Ben & Jerry's.

I recently went out and purchased myself a flashy ice cream maker, one of those ones that you don't need to freeze the bowl for, and to justify my purchase, I set out to find the best recipes. I fell down a rabbit hole and purchased 6 ice cream books - I know I went overboard, but I'm so glad I did. I've tried the book with cream cheese instead of egg, and although I love the idea of it, I couldn't get past the cream cheese taste in my strawberry ice cream. I don't mind a strawberry cheesecake ice cream, but I don't want all my ice creams to taste like cheesecake. Then I went and tried a couple of other recipes which seems to be quite standard from another couple of books which called for cooking the custard. Yes, that worked, it took a really long time (especially when you add all the cooling times) and I did need another set of arms to do it right. In the end though, I found the finished product a little too hard and dense when frozen. Along comes Ben and Jerry's book. I wasn't too sure about using raw eggs, so just to be sure, I pasturized my eggs. I did all the eggs in my fridge as aparently it doesn't affect how you use them and now I'm set to make many more batches of ice cream without having to worry. My husbands first request when I got the new machine was banana ice cream - unfortunately I didn't have ripe enough banana's at the time so I couldn't do that straight up, but by the time I got to B&J's they were ready to go. I made this recipe in my thermomix in just 10 minutes! So simple! I made the base first with the whisk in and since everything was still so cold, it went straight into my machine to churn. Once that was in, simply took out the whisk attachment from the thermomix, ad the bananas and other ingredient, wizzed it up and then it was ready to be added to the final 2 minutes of churning. That was it! Soooo simple! After the churn, popped it in the freezer to harden up some more. Today is 48 hours since it's been in the freezer and OMG, it's sooo yummy! I didn't have to take it out of the freezer to soften, it was great to go straight away! I am in love with this process and I won't be looking back. I'll be trying all the amazing looking recipes. Thanks so much B&J!!

I love B&J icecream and it's wonderful that their recipes are accessible here. In bits and pieces you also learn a bit about both Ben and Jerry and the history of how they grew their ethical business. I do have an icecream maker and make icecream semi-regularly but some of the ingredients for the recipes in this book can be a little hard to find in India, so I don't reach for it very often.

This is an excellent way to get more out of your ice cream maker! Lots of recipes and ideas on how to use it. I am so glad I bought it!

Have been looking for a good boo on ice cream recipies. This book was more than I evpected!