Our Ice Cream making tools

The most exciting hours of the day is usually when we get home and start our ice-cream making, yes we do have our day jobs...and precisely cos we still slog for the corporates from 9-6 (when we are lucky with no OT), hence our custard is usually made during unearthly hours of the night or over the weekend. Then we'll leave the mixture in the fridge overnight and churn it the next day / evening.

Tonight is one of those times where chillin is not happening so I thought we'll blog about our kitchen equipment instead. 

As mentioned, we were kinda kitchen aliens so even buying equipment was a learning process for us but we did try to make use of what we already have in M's kitchen just so to save $ and space.

Starting with the very important measuring cups...

Most recipes use 'cups' as a measurement for milk, cream and sugar so make sure to get one with the right markings. We found this big one in the house which is useful for measuring milk and cream.

However as we scaled down the proportions in some batches, we realised that we do need a smaller denomination otherwise our 'agaration' will not be the most accurate. So we bought this smaller one that allows us to get down to 1/8 cup. Good for sugar and cream in smaller quantities! 

Another measuring tool needed will be the measuring spoons, one that starts from 1/8 teaspoon is ideal and will be used mostly for getting the right amount of flavors for e.g. vanilla essence.

Then we have the egg separator, because we only use egg yolks in making ice cream hence we bought this not trusting that we would have the skill to separate the yolk and the whites 'manually'. Proven to be a good buy but sometimes smaller egg yolks will slip through and we just gotta scoop it up w/o breaking the yolk.

The thermometer is a must-have because we need it for measuring the temperature when the milk is cooking and also when the yolks are mixed in, to ensure we hit 82 degree celsius where the bacteria in the yolk will be fully killed. We did regret not getting one that is instant (cos we didn't know kitchen thermometers were so advanced), anyway we are making do with this for now.

Next is the saucepan and the ladle which we use to cook the custard. Using a wooden ladle is recommended so you can tell when the custard is ready when you see the back of the ladle being coated with the mixture. But so far M's plastic ladle works fine.

Lastly we had some lock-lock containers ready as well for ice cream storage. Shallow containers are said to be better cos it enables faster freezing.

That's all our stash for now till we discover anything better =) 

We'll also be blogging on our ice-cream machine soon and our evaluation process before we decided to buy the Cuisinart ICE-100. Stay tuned.