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!!

I love ice cream. I bet Ben & Jerry won't mind my saying I love Haagen Dazs' Rum Raisin and Breyer's Butter Pecan and there's hardly anything more decadent than one of those Chocolate Dove Bars. Ben & Jerry's is over the top, double-dog wicked good. They obviously got the idea of picking out big chunks of great-tasting items and putting them into their ice cream. Some of their flavors are so full of big chunks of chocolate, delicious nuts and flavorful fruits it seems like you can hardly find the ice cream for the goodies! Ben & Jerry's is also a Great-American success story of a "Mom and Pop" business that started out with a couple of guys who wanted to make good ice cream. This book is a bargain for Ice Cream lovers. You get easy-to-use recipes for hundreds of ice creams and other desserts - with favorites like "Cherry Garcia" and "Heath Bar Crunch". You also get a mini-history of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream company with interesting tidbits like their fight to allow their Ice Cream to be sold in groceries against one of the food superpowers, who was trying to push Ben & Jerry aside. If B&J hadn't won that legal battle it's unlikely you or I would have ever heard of them and their wonderful ice creams, but it's still fun to read the first-person of this little New England David slaying the corporate Goliath. Ben & Jerry are well-known for their support of environmental-friendly causes, and they also struck a wonderful blow for free enterprise! Anyway - read more about that in the book. The book includes fantastic recipes, but also juicy tidbits - things you can do to your ice-cream or ingredients to make them "creamier" or have more "mouthfeel". For you cooks who love to experiment in the kitchen, this book gives you a great starting place - they give you several excellent "starter" base recipes. Then, once you've got your basic vanilla or chocolate (and they give you variations on each, along with their two cents about what makes one different from another) you can go crazy and add your own goodies. Almost all of the recipes are to make a quart or quart and a half - exactly the right amount to go in one of those great new electric ice-cream makers. There are several of THOSE you can get for less than $30. Only recommended for those who love ice cream. Is that you? Get the book - go crazy!

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.

This book is inspirational and informative, in a chatty, casual style that, while it makes the book fun to read, can sometimes lean toward too casual for my tastes. So I will tell you upfront the one gripe I have with the Ben & Jerry's book: it is vague about a topic I think is very important: cooking of ingredients. In particular, there are three basic "sweet cream" recipes (pg 28-9) in the book. The first describes a cream that uses eggs, cream, milk, and sugar, mixed together in a bowl. In the second recipe, however, Ben & Jerry point out that this number 2 recipe is easy because it doesn't involve any cooking, and sort of imply that also because of the lack of cooking (and/or the lack of eggs), the 2nd recipe won't last long in the freezer. So okay, did the first recipe involve cooking and we forgot to mention it? Or do none of the recipes involve cooking, and do we then assume that none of them will last long in the freezer? The authors have introduced a smoking gun in act two, when nothing was fired onstage in act one. That said, I still really like this book for the discussion of basic ice cream properties. In fact, I wish that discussion went into a little more detail. (Maybe I really need the Harold McGee ice cream book, if there was such a thing). And if you like crazy, wild, and inspiring ice cream recipes, Ben & Jerry are famous for them for a reason, and you will find those recipes in abundance here. So overall, I give this book a high rating for its basic info content and its wild ice cream chemistry tips and techniques, but a star off for some vagueness.

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.

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

Pour ceux qui l'ignoreraient encore, Ben & Jerry's est une marque de glaces américaine créée en 1978 par deux amis prénommés Ben et Jerry. Ce livre retrace leur histoire et fait partager leurs recettes à leurs lecteurs. Il est divisé en trois grandes parties : 1- Our Story : L'histoire de l'entreprise Ben & Jerry's depuis leur première petite boutique de glaces, très agréable à lire. Evidemment, l'histoire s'arrête avant que les deux compères ne revendent leur entreprise à la multinationale Unilever. 2- Ice Cream Theory : Quelques explications sur la composition des glaces, leur texture, et des trucs et astuces pour toujours les réussie. 3- Recipes : La plus grosse partie. Elle commence par les recettes basiques de crème glacée, puis présente les parfums de Ben & Jerry's qui ont eu le plus de succès. Ensuite viennent les recettes de glace au chocolat, aux fruits, et celles qui ont trouvé leur origine dans leur petit magasin. Viennent ensuite les glaces aux bonbons, gâteaux, cookies et barres chocolatées, les sorbets, des recettes de gâteaux (Ben et Jerry n'allaient pas vous laisser faire une glace au brownie sans vous donner leur recette de brownie!), les sundaes, les sauces à verser sur les glaces et les boissons. OUF! Quelques ingrédients, notamment dans les confiseries, ne se trouvent pas en France mais il est facile d'imaginer par quoi les remplacer. Il n'y a pas de photos (une photo d'une boule de glace n'ajoute pas grand-chose à une recette déjà somptueuse), mais de jolies illustrations dans des couleurs pastel. Le livre est écrit dans un style familier très agréable et encourage le lecteur à tenter ses propres recettes. Il est très complet, je ne pense pas avoir besoin d'en acheter un autre avant très longtemps.