Having a go at homemade ice cream

A few months back I joined the marketing team for an ice cream brand, lucky girl I know!  It's been quite an education learning about what's in the tub & what real ice cream actually is?  What I've discovered is that it should be pretty pure & simple, just milk or cream, eggs & sugar.

But the reality is in fact quite different & there have been a few things that have genuinely surprised me about the ice cream industry.  Here are my top facts I've been boring everyone with!

• Many ice CREAMS don't actually contain any real CREAM, some use vegetable fats, reconstituted skimmed milk & even water
• The official regulation states ice cream must contain 5% dairy ingredients to be called dairy ice cream. So in a 100g tub, that's only 5g of dairy, makes you wonder what the other 95g are?
• Soft scoop products are created by whipping in a huge amount of air, which last time I checked was a free ingredient!

So with all this in mind & fuelled by my usual curiosity, I thought I'd have a go at making my own. I chose Mary Berry's no churn recipe as it seemed straight forward & didn't need an ice cream maker.  You can find the original recipe here.  It was incredibly simple to follow, whisk egg whites, whisk cream, fold together, freeze!

The result was delicious & simple,  it had a lovely creamy taste & soft texture that melted slowly.  But I have to be honest it's not going to make me stop buying ice cream (especially when my brand tastes so good!) What it has done is demonstrated to me what ice cream should be & as many of us are now more mindful of what we eat, I encourage you all to take a look at your tub & consider the ingredients.  The choice is ours, but lets at least know what we're eating!

Next time find out what I did with my tub of homemade ice cream, trust me it's going to be delicious! Rebecca x