Customer Reviews

Frozen Desserts: The Definitive Guide to Making Ice Creams, Ices, Sorbets, Gelati, and Other Frozen Delights

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought "Frozen Deserts" a few weeks after a friend gave me an electric ice-cream maker for my birthday. The first batches, made from recipes in my otherwise dependable fanciest cookbooks, had been disappointing and I was desperate for help. The Liddel and Weir book taught me techniques that improved the results. I now can make first rate frozen desserts, sorbet and gellato even from less detailed recipes found in other cookbooks.

Liddel and Weir's strength is the detailed techniques using only simple fresh ingredients. Those techniques, along with the recipe for Italian strawberry gelato with balsamic vinegar are worth the small price of the book.

--One warning on taste: US cooks may want to substitute freshly squeezed juice and candied citrus rind for cooked juice and raw citrus peel that the authors use for lemon and grapefruit sorbets.--

Indulge yourself in their many recipes for chocolate ice-cream and vanilla ice-cream. They are rich, smooth, custardy and delicious. This cookbook is a must for anyone serious about learning to make gourmet quality homemade ice-cream.

This is a fabulous book for the beginner who not only wants an excellent set of recipes for all sorts of ice creams, but who also wants useful theory, helpful cooking charts, notes about equipment, and even cross-cultural history. For example, if you want to start experimenting with flavors that are not listed in the book, you can learn enough with the authors' excellent explanation of the chemistry of ice cream and their useful chart/formula for calculating necessary proportions of ingredients so that your newest experiment doesn't turn to mush after 5 minutes out of the freezer. Or maybe you want to really understand the difference between Italian Gelato and Premium Ice Cream so that you can take your favorite Ice Cream recipe and be able to improvise and make Gelato with the same flavors (hint: the difference has to do with milk-cream ratio and the resulting amount of air). If you like to have expertise about ice cream (and not just the recipes themselves) this is a perfect book for you.

This book may lack the close up food photos which are de rigeur in most cook books these days, but it more than makes up for this by including thoroughly researched technically accurate ice cream recipes.
The authors are almost chemists in their attention to such details as the difference between using a 35% cream and a 40% cream. There are formulas in this book to help you make your own flavors and even one formula to help you figure out how much alcohol to put in an ice cream if you want it to be able to freeze.
There are plenty of old stand-bys like chocolate and french vanilla, but there are also some very compelling flavors such as Rhubarb sorbet and rosepetal ice cream. I agree that this book is written for a UK audience, but that is a VERY minor quibble and doesn't actually effect the usefulness of the book.
Included is a very interesting, well researched history of ice cream that debunks several popular myths and includes some information about how people made ice in the 16th century.
Overall, this is an incredible book and using it I feel like I am equipped with all the information I need in order to make the highest quality ice cream possible.

In the kitchen I tend to burn stuff and not follow directions to the level of accuracy they require, but every recipe I've tried in here has turned out fabulously with heaps of praise from family and friends. Lots of little tips along the way ("let the bananas get almost rotten, then they're perfect.", "the alcohol content will not have this ready-to-eat from the maker", "watch the mixture like a hawk"). The "Everyday Chocolate", "Well-Behaved Vanilla", and toffee/Heath recipes are highly recommended. This book was slightly less than I'd hoped for though. Reasonably thorough with 5 different vanilla recipes (some non-cook, extra rich, more difficult, or less time-consuming), 4 chocolates, and a host of exotic ones (avocado, bay leaf, brown bread, lemon grass, many more), this is still the book to beat for frozen confections. Sorbets, sherbet, and ices are covered in blissfully vegan detail, but say arrivederci if you're looking for gelato recipes. Comes up short for fruit ice creams (no blueberry or strawberry recipe, but has spoom and ice instead) and ones with stuff in them like bubble gum, caramel, and fudge ripple.

This is a good book with some good recipes/ideas and history/theory of ice cream, but because the author lives in the UK, some things don't apply to those who live in the U.S. There is a definite slant towards the UK. For example there are many supply souces listed for Europe/UK and only a few for the US, also some of the terms used are definitely British.

The recipes are often complicated and/or time consuming, more so then any other Ice Cream book, and I do own MORE then a few. But I guess this book was meant for the true "expert chef" not an everyday cook like myself with limited time.

Overall I am happy with my purchase and this book, but I don't consider this to be the "Bible" of Ice Cream books as so many others seem to think. I don't think this book really deserves the high praise that It has gotten, I think "Ice Cream! : The Whole Scoop by Gail Damerow " deserves that honor, especially for those with limited time and who live in the U.S.

The recipes have given me and my friends great enjoyment over the years. My favorites are two super easy, super good, no-cook ones: strawberry ice cream with balsamic vinegar, and pistachio. Friends are just amazed how good these ice creams are, and even more amazed at how easy they are to make. Reading the book is a pleasure in itself; it is obviously the authors' labor of love, and their joy to share. I have used this book non-stop since it was first published in the UK in 1995 (it had two reprints in the same year, and five more reprints since then). This book makes a great gift for anyone who loves good food and who is interested in what makes something good.

This is more of a cook book than a mere recipe book. For people who see their ice cream maker as a convenience product, this book probably isn't ideal. Not that the recipes are hard, but they do feel like actual cooking. Other authors take advantage of the fact that even poor ice cream tastes pretty good. Weir and Liddell look for the best recipes, although they do advocate shortcuts where they don't compromise the result.

I would estimate that about half of the recipes are unusual or exotic. Flip through the inside-the-book index, and you'll see Fresh Bay Leaf Ice Cream, Jackfruit Sherbert, and even one calling for caviar. Although the classics are included, it seems like a waste to buy this if you aren't looking to experiment a bit, or perhaps don't ant to track down unusual ingredients. I like the fact that I can buy seemingly anything at the market and find a corresponding frozen dessert recipe in this book.

I have made about 15-20 of the recipies in this book and all of them have been excellent. I really liked the variety of recipes (sorbets, ice creams, ices, even Kulfi!) and flavors (herbs, fruit, spices, etc.). The historical advertisements and pictures of the origins of ice cream sprinkled throughout were interesting but didn't take up too much of the book.

I also liked that the measurements are all in US and metric so I can share my recipes with friends overseas.

The recipes for vanilla ice cream weren't the best I've had but don't let that deter you - if you only get one ice cream book this should be it.

Thid book teaches you the basics of making ice cream at home. The recipes are not simple to make (like for example in Ben & Jerry's book) but are precise and seem to be well tested by the authors. The ice creams that I've made were the best home-made ice creams that I've tasted.

This is a book for the serious home ice cream makers.

In short -- this frozen desserts book does an excellent job of demystifying what it takes to create excellent homemade ices and ice cream, gelatos etc. For those who have a serious interest in the chemistry of frozen desserts -- it's all here, and yet for those who simply want excellent no-fail type recipes, the authors have included a version of nearly every major type of ice cream, sorbet, ice, or gelato that one could ever want. I was a bit skeptical at first using the cookbook, but after rave reviews of the actual ice cream we have prepared by those who have tasted them, am now very happy with this particular cookbook. I also recommend that one consider the purchase of a self-contained electric refrigeration/freezing ice cream/gelato maker (Amazon.com sells several excellent choices) as this will make the whole process much less work.