Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home

Since buying this book, I've tried four of Jeni's recipes: Goat Cheese and Roasted Cherries, Salty Caramel, Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World, and Buckeye State. Perfect results with all of them! Just follow the recipe, and you really will get Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream at Home. Before getting started, I'd recommend reading the first chapter of the book with Jeni's notes, tips, and explanation of the science behind making a great ice cream. As far as equipment goes, you'll need an electric ice cream machine (Jeni uses the Cuisinart Ice-20), whisk, 4-quart or larger pot, 2-3 mixing bowls, gallon size ziploc bags, ice cream storage container, parchment paper, and a big bowl for creating an ice bath. Other tools that comes in handy: a knife for chopping up larger ingredients, cherry pitter if you plan on making anything with cherries in it, digital kitchen scale, and double boiler for melting chocolate. You'll want an extra freezing canister if you plan on making more than one batch a day. For cooking the ice cream mixture, Jeni recommends a 4 quart pot, but I've been using a 6-quart stock pot and couldn't imagine anything smaller. When boiling your cream mixture, it could easily boil over, if your pot isn't big enough. Basic Ice Cream Ingredients: you'll need heavy cream, whole milk, cornstarch or tapioca starch, sugar, salt, cream cheese, and light corn syrup/glucose syrup. Each recipe will also call for different additional ingredients like vanilla extract or beans, chocolate, natural peanut butter, spices, honey, nuts, liquor, etc. As with all cooking, the better the ingredients: the better the product. Buy organic ingredients and non-homogenized dairy products if you can, and splurge on the "good" chocolate...all this effort deserves the good chocolate! Ice Cream Storage: I have tried three different storage methods. Reusable gladware/tupperware containers are ok, but I had a couple crack and shatter after freezing, leaving all the ice cream exposed to air. Specialty containers like the ones sold at designer kitchen supply stores are good, but I didn't want to spend $35 on a container, especially when I like to keep several flavors on hand. My favorite containers have been the disposable cardboard containers by Sweet Bliss. The Plain White Quart Size Frozen Dessert Containers fit one Jeni's recipe, or you can divide it between 2-3 Pint sized containers. Great for home storage and transporting (in an iced cooler). It's been a blast to make all these great recipes, and I fully intend on cooking my way through this whole book! The recipes are well written and easy to follow. The photography is beautiful, and you get a good feel of what the finished ice cream is supposed to look like. Jeni lists her preferred suppliers if you want to use the exact same ingredients (I've found similar replacements at Whole Foods or the local farmers market). One note: the "Salty Caramel" recipe has one small typo. The ingredient list calls for vanilla, but it's not listed in the recipe instructions. I added it at the end before mixing the cream mixture with the cream cheese mixture. 7/9/11 - One more note: there is another typo in The Milkiest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World recipe. It should read 1.25 cups of heavy cream instead of just 0.25 cups of heavy cream. I've heard that these typos will be fixed in the second edition which will be printing soon!

It's a beautiful book to look at, and Jeni's recipes have really interesting flavor combinations that make you want to make her ice cream every week. Here are the recipes I've made (will add more over time): - Salty Caramel, which Jeni's describes as her biggest selling flavor, is extraordinarily thick, creamy and rich. Making the caramel with the dry sugar technique takes some close monitoring but isn't overly technical for cooking at home. The recipe didn't come close to making the quart it was supposed to, but the flavor is so rich the batch will last you awhile all the same. In my batch the sweet overpowered the salty, so if you're looking for the contrast, go a bit heavier on the salt than the recipe calls for. - Toasted Rice with a Whiff of Coconut and Black Tea, is a really neat flavor. I recommend, when toasting the rice, don't go all the way to "the color of brown sugar" as Jeni instructs. This gave the rice a slight burnt taste in my batch, so go for a lighter brown. Also, make sure to taste the rice pudding as it cooks to get the al dente texture the recipe calls for. I went a bit past al dente to a softer rice texture, still good, but it could have been better. If you don't have a fine sieve to remove the tea from the cream mixture, pour it through cheese cloth, which worked great for me. The final ice cream is a very unique and delicious combination of flavor which is led by the black tea, and texture which is led by the rice. Don't expect a lot of coconut flavor if you go the full 10 minutes steeping the black tea. All-in-all unique and delicious. - Savannah Buttermint is very rich with a satisfying, substantial mouth-feel. I found it overly sweet fresh out of the ice cream maker, but much more mellow and smooth the next morning after a night in the freezer. The only real trick in the cooking was melting the white chocolate. I used white chocolate chips instead of chopping up baking squares, and the chips were very slow to melt in a double-boiler (really a pot-in-a-pot) so I added heavy cream about a teaspoon at a time until the chocolate finally melted into a thick paste. The flavor profile of this ice cream - with 10 drops butter flavor to 4 drops peppermint oil - is much more buttery than minty. If you like a pronounced mint flavor I'd go 7 drops butter flavor and 5-6 drops peppermint oil. Also I think this flavor would be excellent a bit less sweet - you may want to go with 1/3 cup of sugar instead of 2/3. - Roasted Strawberry and Buttermilk is extraordinarily thick and creamy. The buttermilk adds a finish of tang that adds a unique freshness and character to the deep strawberry flavor. I expected the strawberries to shrink and dry in "roasting", but there's not enough oven time for that. They stay plump. It's more like you're heating them through to bring out their natural flavor. I almost increased the roasted strawberry puree content from 1/2 cup, but stayed with the directions and was pleased with the final strawberry quality. This was also the recipe where I learned that when Jeni says use a 4 quart pot to boil the cream mixture, that's really important. I used a small saucepan and as soon as the mixture reached boiling it surged out of the pot and all over the stove. Definitely use a big pot to boil the cream mixture! - Baked Apple Sorbet is very flavorful, like apple cider at the season's peak, or a spiced apple sauce. The recipe is interesting, essentially baked apples, cider, cinnamon and vanilla, pureed in a food processor and then strained for the juice which is spun the ice cream maker until it forms "soft peaks" like whipping cream. The cinnamon and vanilla bring a nice depth to the apples, and I found the overall balance of flavors right on target. I used and high quality vanilla extract syrup instead of a vanilla bean, which worked just fine. - Bangkok Peanut is rich and delicious. Just a 1/2 cup of peanut butter really goes a long way delivering the peanut flavor, but it's the coconut milk and toasted coconut that really take this flavor to another level. My wife who doesn't like peanut butter ice cream really liked this one, and I think it's the complexity of the coconut that won her over. The only challenge with this ice cream is the toasted coconut clumps around the churner paddle, so isn't evenly dispersed evenly through the ice cream when the churn is done. It must be re-blended in by hand. - Maple Ice Cream with salty buttered nuts is thick, rich and creamy. I think I've used this description for almost every ice cream I've reviewed here, so please forgive my redundancy, it's the most accurate description. Jeni recommends using Grade B or C maple syrup for this recipe ("they have a stronger maple flavor"). My supermarket only had Grade A so I selected the most premium Grade A on the shelf for this recipe. The result was a very strong, rich maple flavor. It's hard to imagine getting a stronger flavor with a Grade B or C, but it would be interesting to hear other peoples' results. The salty buttered nuts (I used pecans) are absolutely essential to this recipe, because the salt and crunch cuts right through the creamy sweet maple, adding a bright contrast that really wakes up the flavor. - Sweet Potato with Torched Marshmallow has a good ice cream base, with the molasses adding pleasing maple notes, and the potatoes contributing a more pureed than creamy mouth-feel. The torched homemade marshmallows are the star here though, don't even think of leaving them out. Making them takes some time and care - boiling the sugar to a precise temperature, beating to a consistency like marshmallow fluff, spreading the fluff onto a baking sheet and cutting it into squares. I was lucky I didn't really know what I was getting into, but the final marshmallows were a big hit with my kids, and worth making even without the ice cream. Don't forget to torch the marshmallows with a kitchen torch before adding to the ice cream - it brings out a different and better flavor than the plain marshmallows. The consistency of my marshmallows ended up a bit more like nougat than your conventional soft gooey supermarket marshmallows. I don't know how it happened, but it tasted great all the same. UPDATE - of all the flavors so far, this took the longest to use up. My wife and kids just weren't crazy about it. The kids were happier eating the extra marshmallows. I you make this one, my suggestion is make it for a big crowd who will eat most of it in one sitting. - Black Coffee is rich and delicious for any coffee lover. It's very simply to make. You just steep ground coffer in the hot cream mixture for 5 minutes, then strain through a sieve. You need 1/4 cup coffee, which is a little less than 2 single-serve pods. I used Wolfgang Puck "Vienna Coffee House" which imparted a nice dark coffee flavor, but I guess a good thing about this recipe is your ability to use whichever ground coffee you like best. - Banana Ice Cream with Caramelized White Chocolate Freckles is pleasantly lighter than most of the others so far. If you like banana desserts I think you'll love it. I used a full vanilla bean as the recipe calls for, which contribute great flavor, but I suspect 1/2 bean would be fine if you want to save the rest. Ripe bananas pureed work well to achieve a smooth base for freezing. The caramelized white chocolate freckles add a nice dulce de leche flavor. I used Nestle chips instead of chopped blocks, and grape seed oil because I couldn't find refined coconut oil at my local supermarket. I think any light neutral oil would work fine - you need function here, not flavor. Lastly I layered the caramelized chocolate into the container, which resulted in nice big chunks, instead of drizzling it into the mixer. - Coriander Ice Cream with Raspberry Sauce - I ordered Jeni's complete essential oil kit from aftelier.com, so am set to make any of the recipes with essential oils. I like this flavor a lot. Coriander is smooth and with hints of vanilla as Jeni says, but quite different and hard to describe. I made both raspberry and blackberry sauce for this recipe. I ended up only needing one, so went with the blackberry, which was delicious and very necessary to complement the coriander ice cream. However these sauces are just berries and sugar, and I think any Smucker's jelly heated in a sauce pan would be just as effective and delicious. This ice cream was the most thick and creamy of any I've made so far. I'm not sure, but it might have been because I left the ice cream base out in my kitchen overnight because I started the recipe too late in the evening to run the ice cream maker. The recipe called for 3-5 drops of coriander oil. I split the difference with 4. This created a nice flavor, but subtle. I think the recipe could work well with 5 drops, for a more pronounced flavor. - Brown Butter Almond Brittle is amazingly great. The brittle alone is delicious. I used Marcona almonds from Costco, which have an excellent fresh, crunchy saltiness, and crushed them a bit with a mortar and pestle. The ice cream is very easy, just Jeni's basic base, mixed with butter solids made from melting 3 stocks of butter, letting it settle and pouring off the clarified butter to leave the brown solids at the bottom of the pot. (I poured the clarified butter into a small jar, and put in the refrigerator for future use.) The brittle, in the butter thick ice cream, is immediately addictive - rich and smooth, with an immediate and satisfying Heath Bar-like crunch from the almond brittle, which I generously layered with the ice cream. You will have plenty of brittle left over for candy-snacking later. - Roasted Pumpkin 5-Spice ice cream is reminiscent of the Sweet Potato (with Torched Marshmallow) ice cream, in that is has a more pureed than creamy mouth fell. This is of course because of the pumpkin, or in my case, the butternut squash. This is an easy ice cream to make, pureed roast pumpkin/squash blended into the cream cheese before incorporation with the cream base. 5-spice is an interesting, nice addition, lending a touch of anise for a more complex flavor profile than the pumpkin alone. This would be a great ice cream to serve at Thanksgiving. - Ylang-Ylang with Clove and Honeycomb has a floral, perfumed taste. This may sound off-putting, but I encourage you to try it, it's delicious. This ice cream is super easy to make if you have the essential oils - just Jeni's ice cream with a few drops of the essential oils. More interesting is the honeycomb candy, which is basically sugar, corn syrup and honey heated to 296 degrees ("hard crack") and spread on parchment paper on a baking sheet to harden, then cracked into nickel-sized pieces. If you eat this candy straight from the baking tray it's so hard and clingy it will surely rip out your fillings if you try to bite it. Let it sit overnight in the ice cream however, and it takes on a delicious crunch, like an aerated toffee. All-in-all this flavor is well worth trying, especially if you've bought the essential oils. Did I mention it's thick and creamy? ; ) ps I still don't know exactly what ylang-ylang is. - Lemon & Blueberry Frozen Yogurt is interesting to make. There's some prep involved. Namely you need to drain a quart of plain low-fat yogurt through cheesecloth in a strainer for 6-8 hours. I left mine overnight, tossing the drained liquid three times. It was surprising to see about a cup of liquid drain out of the yogurt. The blueberry sauce is easy to make. A cup and a half of blueberries (I used a bag of them from the freezer section of the supermarket) is brought to a boil with some sugar, then simmered over low heat until thickened. The strained yogurt is mixed into the lemon-flavored base, then chilled in the ice cream maker. Then the lemon yogurt and blueberry sauce are alternately layered into your container. I'm not a frozen yogurt fan. I made this because my daughter picked out, but it's pretty tasty. If you like lemon desserts, I have a hard time imagining you won't like this. The blueberry sauce is a critical element, its sweetener tempering the punchy lemon flavor of the yogurt.

Jeni"s Splendid Ice Creams at Home is a book that I bought on a whim when I was bitten by the home ice cream bug last summer. Honestly, it looked too trendy to be of any use to me. Sadly, I've never eaten at one of her ice cream shops. Boy, have I missed out! This book has turned out to be one of my two favorite ice cream books. It also turned out to be my husband's favorite ice cream book. The first recipe I made was the Maple Ice Cream with Salty Buttered Nuts (pecans, for us). It utilized a full 12 ounces of grade b maple syrup. Contrasted with the salty nuts, it was utterly heavenly. I was on cloud nine as I spooned up each delightful creamy spoonful. It somehow was rich and delicate all at the same time. Next I made Gucci Muu Muu with toasted coconut, bittersweet chocolate, and yellow curry. Yes, you read yellow curry correctly. It was the most sophisticated ice cream flavor I have ever made. The chocolate assaults yous taste buds up front while the curry creates this subtle hated back note that gradually builds in flavor and heat. It was divine. The whole time I tried it, I kept thinking that the flavors shouldn't work together. But they do! Jeni added that the ice cream works with cashews so I threw some in for a little added nirvana. Then I made the Backyard Mint Ice Cream. I'm growing a massive chocolate mint bush in my garden this year for desserts. I have to say that her mint ice cream makes every mint ice cream I've ever had taste like minty chalk. With her ice cream, you actually taste the essential oils from the mint leaves after 4-12 hours of steeping. I shaved dark chocolate over the top. Oh my. The book is a well made hardback that stays open without having to crack the spine. The pages are thicker than most and glossy. They have survived quite a few hot cream splashes with minimal wear and tear. She shows you a photograph of a spoonful of finished ice cream for each recipe. She also has quiet a few sundae spreads where she creates a special sundae on a two pages of the cookbook with one of her signature ice creams. The One Night in Bangkok Sundae is something special. Jeni tells you her story of how she made it in business. It is a more heart felt story than many of the up and coming chef stories Ive read. She also gives you info on what common ingredients and equipment she uses as well as the basic craft of ice cream. Most of her ingredients are easy to pick up at your local grocery although she uses a few specialty products in a handful of ice creams such as natural butter flavoring. She also provides sources for these products. Her ice creams are divided into seasonal flavors so you can always pick a recipe using what is fresh and luscious at the moment. I like the basic formula of her ice creams. The recipes are comfortingly reproducible. You boil varying amounts of cream, milk, and flavorings and add a slurry of corn starch and milk in most cases which is reboiled and added to cream cheese and salt and maybe chocolate or some other ingredient. It isn't too complicated for a beginner but produces some over the top flavors. I am so sad that I've never been to any of her ice creams shops but can't imagine her ice cream is much better than what I'm producing at home using this marvelous book.

I have been trying to make ice cream for awhile. Most books are just recipies. Jeni's is not only the detailed recipies, but the HOW TO. And more importantly, how to do it right! Thorough basics with tips on how to make it better. The foundation of Jeni's book is from an obvious source of passion for her craft. All of her experience, and adventures in finding the best of ingredients that make a remarkable difference in flavors and sensations. Consider making a corn flavor ice cream, from an actual cob of corn, and marbling with a home made blackberry sauce. The berrys just bought from the Farmers Market that morning...who would think...corn flavored ice cream...IT INCREDIBLE!!! There is more than just ice cream, frozen yogurt and gellatos in this book. Pralines, berry sauces, chocolates, peanut brittle, macaroon ice cream sandwiches. Even how to make ice cream cones, and much, much more. Jeni's book is a wonderful reference book as well. Not only what to use, where to get it, and if you can't; resources to find it. The process may not be very open to variations, the ingredients are. The thought is simple; skimp in...skimp out. With the quality of the ingredient not being absolute, it is open to suggestions allowing variations. Chocolates, berrys, vanilla beans, etc.. Therefore what you are able to obtain, try and get the best you can. This helps incorporate my imagination into the next batch. How can I make it better next time, and that usually deals with the quality, or simply, a variation of an ingredient. Read her story, and the basic process in the front, and back sections a few times. Read the recipie's story, the ingredients, and the process a couple of times before getting started. Begin with what strikes your fancy, whatever sounds simple at first. Then when you're ready for a little more, again read everything, getting a grasp of what happens when. Keep tying in the basic process, with where the unique elements come in. I've made close to a dozen batches, and it gets easier quickly, and more fun everytime. I love the expression on everyone's face when they try a scoop. I take the many repeat requests as a compliment. Thank you Jeni!

I bought the Kindle version of Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream primarily because I kept running into references to it when I was researching how to make my homemade ice cream more creamy. This book helped me grasp ways to accomplish it. Jeni's method does not use eggs and instead uses a combination of corn starch or tapioca starch/flour, corn syrup, and cream cheese to achieve smaller ice crystals and a creamier texture. Each of those ingredients plays an essential role: corn syrup to minimize ice crystals and to soften the texture; corn starch/tapioca starch to stabilize and to absorb extra water; cream cheese to replace the emulsifying fat of egg yolks. I'm not a huge fan of using cream cheese since it lends a bit of a cheesecake-like flavor; however, it's essential to add if you're not using egg yolks unless you don't mind the frozen cream texture and flavor. Since getting and reading this book, I've developed my own ice cream base which uses a reduced number of egg yolks, plus corn syrup and tapioca flour. Magic! I sitll use her recipes for flavor ideas since she includes some unusual ones such as Brown Butter Almond Brittle, Sweet Basil and Honeyed Pine Nut, Watermelon Lemonade Sorbet, Scarlet and Earl Grey, and Toasted Rice. There are also a few ice cream dessert recipes scattered throughout. I don't like the book's organization. It divides ice cream flavors into seasons, something I find ridiculous because I like the same flavors year round. It also makes it difficult to find, say, a fruit ice cream or a specific flavor I want to repeat without first finding it in the index. The book includes sections on the Basics (ice cream base and various add-ins) and an unnecessary page on flavor. The recipes are the best I've found for non-custard ice creams and among the most inventive for flavor combinations. Whether you like them, however, depends on both how adventurous you are and how committed you are to eggless ice cream. -- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

Anyone who has moved to another part of the country will tell you that the things that remind you the most of home are often food-related. When I moved from Columbus, OH to Dallas, TX one of the tastes I missed the most was Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream. Unable to find products similar to the tastes I know and love, I've taken to my kitchen in an attempt to recreate them at home. At first, I concentrated my efforts on developing a pizza recipe that reminded me of my favorite from Columbus. Because I was fortunate to receive a Cuisinart Ice Cream maker for Christmas last year, I've abandoned my quest for the perfect pizza and found myself mixing up batch after batch of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. I started with the basics like Ugandan Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, and The Milkiest Chocolate in the World. My favorites however, are Salty Caramel and Roxbury Road Ice Creams. Roxbury is the name of a street in the little suburb where I grew up. It's also the name of Jeni's take on Rocky Road, and it is divine. Usually when I need a recipe, I turn to the web and add "Alton Brown" or "Good Eats" to my search string. The first ice cream I made with my new machine (vanilla) was disappointing. It wasn't Jeni's. It lacked richness, and wasn't nearly as creamy as I had hoped. It was a treat, but it lacked decadence. I returned to the internet and found a recipe for Jeni's vanilla. Eureka! Jeni's process is a little more involved than other recipes, but the effort is well worth it. Rich, dense, creamy, and with a bit of "chew", this is simply the best ice cream I have ever had - outside of a Jeni's (and I didn't have to wait in line to get it). Since I liked the recipe for vanilla so much, I decided to buy the book. I'm glad I did. Since buying Jeni's book, I've made several of her recipes. I like that they're organized by season, because it allows me to use the freshest, in-season fruits when making ice creams, sorbets, and frozen yogurt throughout the year. This book is... Splendid. Interesting stories, beautiful pictures, and a taste of home. I highly recommend this book!

I lived in Columbus for 5 years and enjoyed Jeni's ice cream everywhere I could get it, from the North Market to her free standing shops to local restaurants that served terrines for dessert... She is always on top of national lists for best ice cream, and rightfully so. After moving to Colorado, I found myself craving her salty caramel and other fantastic flavors. There is one small market in Denver that carries an assortment of her hand-packed pints, but at $12 a pop it's not easy to justify that expense for ice cream. Enter the recipe book. I borrowed my neighbor's ice cream machine and tried the Backyard Mint recipe using mint plucked from the community garden. Jeni's instructions are very clear and detailed and made cooking the mix a breeze. After a mid-morning ice bath and a whirl in the ice cream machine, I anxiously awaited the finished product. Freezing it for a couple of hours to harden was almost more than I could stand. But it was worth the wait. For much less than the cost of a pint, I was able to make an entire quart of Backyard Mint (with chocolate chips) and it was incredible. As good as I remember in her stores. My next experiment will be with Salty Caramel. I'm intimidated by the idea of making the caramel myself, but reading her tips makes me feel like I'll be able to do it. Jeni tells her back story in the cookbook, and it's an inspiring one. It's her name on the store fronts and on every container, but you soon understand the community that has helped to get her where she is, and her gratitude for the connections she has made. Not only are the recipes world class, there's a sense of local, regional, and even global pride and community that makes her brand so special.

I bought my husband this book as he was a beginner homemade ice cream maker. He had been using the recipes provided my the ice cream maker machine and was basically satisfied, but still wanted to practice and tweak. My sister sent us a gift of "Jeni's Spendid Ice Creams" from Jeni's store and they were so delicious and unusual, I was happy to find her book. Well, my husband was so surprised to see that "normal" ice cream recipes are so flawed at providing truly delicious ice cream. In this book, Jeni provides lots of tips and insights into how she developed her great recipes -- the chemistry behind ice cream making, details of ingredients, etc. The quality, flavor, consistency of our ice cream and sorbets now is so superior to anything we had been getting. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. My husband says "outstanding!" The book is beautifully done, with lovely photo for each recipe and clear, easy instructions. At this very moment, my husband is following her philosophy and advice and whipping up a batch of a flavor variation on one of her recipes "Roasted Peaches and Buttermilk Ice Cream." Divine! Buy the book -- she will teach you how to make great ice cream and also shares many of her best recipes.

This is a great buy. Jeni's recipe instructions are wonderfully easy to follow, the pictures are great and the results are just as they should be. Best of all is the introduction, whereby all those annoying problems you had making ice-cream in the past are explained, in layman's scientific terms - everything suddenly makes sense and you're free to cream ice with the help of some really great artisanal recipe ideas. I can only recommend this book and hope there will be another one soon!

Me llegó justo al dia, y el amor fue instantaneo. Viene todo muy bien explicado, con grandes ideas, detalles, etc. Unas ilustraciones que dan ganas de coger i comerselas. Yo no sé inglés casi, i con el traductor, las palabras clave comunes en todas las recetas, lo he entendido. Que no sea un factor que frene. Lo recomiendo a todo aquel que quiera haver helados i sorprender a sus invitados. Ya queda menos para verano!

Jeni has gone her own way. Most ice cream books would not have you boil milk but simply heat the milk. Her ice cream recipe is fantastic. Very smooth (no ice crystals) and very easy to scoop (even after sitting in the fridge for a week) Have only tried two flavours. Each has been very unique and very tasty. Highly recommend this book.

Having tried a few other different ice cream recipe books, this is the easiest and most fun set of recipes I've attempted. There are only a couple of standard bases used for almost all the recipes, but the additional ingredients make each recipe wildly different. There are a few points where you have to trust the book - some of the flavour combinations seem very odd on the page, but when put together work really well. The pineapple piment sorbet, with paprika and cayenne pepper is one of those, as are the cheese-based ice creams like goat cheese and roasted cherries. There are plenty of boozy ices as well, such as cognac and fig, and each has a number of alternative suggestions using different flavours to achieve similar results. Technique-wise there's nothing too intense here, as long as you can boil a pan of milk and melt chocolate you will be fine with everything. For the frozen yoghurt selections, the book tells you to strain plain yoghurt through cheesecloth/muslin overnight to thicken it, but my suggestion is to put two coffee filters in a sieve, fill them with yoghurt and put the whole lot over a bowl. Then just peel off the paper and add the thickened yoghurt when the recipe calls for it.

A real, hands-on guide to making ice cream at home - without professional, super-expensive machines or specialised ingredients. Real fruit, chocolate, milk and cream, nuts, honey, spices... This book not only delivers detailed, easy-to-follow recipes, but also teaches some of the "science" behind ice cream making, so that new flavours can easily be created. The recipes also are delectable, with a good balance of classic (chocolate, strawberry...) and surprising. If you're going to buy one book about ice cream making, this must be it!