Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book [Paperback]

Ben Cohen (Author), Jerry Greenfield (Author), Nancy Stevens (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 1987

With little skill, surprisingly few ingredients, and even the most unsophisticated of ice-cream makers, you can make the scrumptious ice creams that have made Ben & Jerry's an American legend.

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book tells fans the story behind the company and the two men who built it-from their first meeting in 7th-grade gym class (they were already the two widest kids on the field) to their "graduation" from a $5.00 ice-cream-making correspondence course to their first ice-cream shop in a renovated gas station.

But the best part comes next. Dastardly Mash, featuring nuts, raisins, and hunks of chocolate. The celebrated Heath Bar Crunch. New York Super Fudge Chunk. Oreo Mint. In addition to Ben & Jerry's 11 greatest hits, here are recipes for ice creams made with fresh fruit, with chocolate, with candies and cookies, and recipes for sorbets, sundaes, and baked goods. The 90-plus authentic recipes are spiced with Lyn Severance's bright, quirky, full-color illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

MORE CHUNKS LESS BUNK

Despite a philosophical disagreement over chunk size-Ben prefers them large and occasional while Jerry favors frequent, somewhat smaller ones-together Ben and Jerry are good friends who make great ice cream.

Now they share all the recipes and techniques that have been made them nationwide heroes. Specially adapted to make at home, there are 90 recipes in all, including sorbets, summer slushes, giant sundaes and other ice-cream concoctions. All you have to do is remember Ben & Jerry's two rules of ice-cream making:

RULE #1

You don't have to be a pro to make incredibly delicious ice cream.

RULE #2

There's no such thing as an unredeemingly bad batch of homemade ice cream.

NEW FLAVORS TO TRY:

Orange Cream Dream

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Honey Apple Raisin Walnut

Peanut Butter Fudge Swirl

Chocolate Superfudge Brownie

FLAVORS YOU KNOW AND LOVE:

Heath Bar Crunch

Dastardly Mash

Fresh Georgia Peach

Oreo Mint

BEN & JERRY REVEAL:

How to break Heath Bars into the perfect bite-size chunks.

How to add chunks so they don't sink to the bottom.

Why you must eat honey-flavored ice cream in one sitting.

Bio

Ben Cohen has been a Pinkerton Guard, a garbage man, and a short-order cook. He began seriously testing ice-cream flavors at the age of five.

Jerry Greenfield has worked as a lab technician. He is glad he was not admitted to medical school.

Nancy Stevens is a magazine and newspaper writer who has been published in the Saturday Review, the New York Times, the Village Voice, and Working Woman.

About the Author

Ben Cohen has been a Pinkerton Guard, a garbage man, and a short-order cook. He began seriously testing ice-cream flavors at the age of five.

Jerry Greenfield has worked as a lab technician. He is glad he was not admitted to medical school.

Nancy Stevens is a magazine and newspaper writer who has been published in the Saturday Review, the New York Times, the Village Voice, and Working Woman.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (January 5, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0894803123
• ISBN-13: 978-0894803123
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 7.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (341 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > General
  • #1 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Baking > Desserts
  • #8 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Baking > Desserts

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

320 of 333 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Add an ice cream maker for a great wedding present, September 6, 2000

By 

Marcy L. Thompson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book (Paperback)

This is a terrific book, and it solved my perpetual problem of what to give people I know well enough to go to their wedding but not well enough to drop $800 on a wedding present. The recipes in this book make great ice cream. Toss in a decent ice cream maker, and you have a present that no one else will think of, that the receipients will appreciate, and one that they will use over time. (For what it's worth, I usually give the Donvier hand-turned machine because it makes dense, smooth ice cream that reminds me of gelato.)

Anyway, about the book and what makes it so great: Ben and Jerry tell you how to make their most popular ice creams, and a bunch that I never saw before. They provide multiple recipes for chocolate ice cream, and write clearly about how they are different. A friend of mine once made all the choclate ice creams and had a tasting party. It was interesting to see how different they really were. (And this book taught me the secret to great chocolate ice cream taste: a pinch of salt--really!)

If you are worried about using eggs, you will want to use a pasteurized egg product in place of the raw eggs. Other than that, this is a terrific book. Lots of good ideas, excellent recipes, and enough discussion about how to create new flavours to encourage even the most reluctant recipe-inventor to go hog wild.

I wish there were a sequel.

120 of 130 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Tasting Recipes with Fresh Ingredients Fun to Make, December 1, 1998

By 

Jeffrey Harris "Jeff Harris" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book (Paperback)

Who doesn't like Ben and Jerry's premium commercial Ice-cream? The recipes in this book are for their familiar flavors and more. All ingredients are fresh and pure. There is plenty of unusual detail in the book. For example, who else bothers to mention that it takes some fresh lemon juice to restore a tanginess to the all too sweet flavor of over-ripened bananas in banana ice-cream?

Unfortunately, Ben and Jerry are shy about providing techniques for refining the texture of the homemade version. But then why should they know them? They make ice-cream with commercial coolers. For refined techniques specific to homemade ice-cream, you will need to look elsewhere, like Liddle and Weir's "Frozen Desserts".

244 of 270 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun but flawed, October 22, 2005

By 

dnk "dnkboston" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book (Paperback)

Like many other people, I love Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Unfortunately, the premium taste also comes with a premium price, so many years ago my husband gifted me with this book.

It's fun to read about how it all began (two chubby little boys who liked eating more than gym- and who can blame them?) and how they fought off the evil Pilsbury Dough Boy to take a stand in the giant world of commercially delivered ice cream. But really, I'm here for the recipes. Sadly, they had some flaws.

While I realize this was written over ten years ago, I think it's almost inexcusable that nowhere do the authors mention cooking the eggs before you use them. Even if you aren't concerned with salmonella (and if you're using egg yolks, you should be), the difference between a raw and cooked egg base is immense- no matter how much chocolate you throw at it, raw eggs just aren't going to be as delicious. Reams of dessert recipes later, I've figured out how to do it (beat the eggs and sugar, scald the milk, slowly add to egg mixture then carefully cook over low heat until you have something resembling a custard sauce NOT scrambled eggs; chill, then add your cream- THEN use the ice cream maker). Was that so hard?

Also, while I appreciate that they are ice cream makers and not bakers, the recipes they give for their ice cream cakes are off as far as amounts given. For instance, for their brownie ice cream cake, they advise baking their Superfudge brownies in two six inch cake pans and then covering the confection with 1 quart of beaten whipping cream. Having made this recipe several times, I can say without any doubt that their proportions are all wrong- you'll end up with enough left over batter for more than a few cupcakes and possibly another layer. And having doubled this recipe and successfully frosted it with the whippings of two cups of cream, either they whipped their cream to butter or they miscalculated (and didn't test) this recipe.

Still, once you have the technique down (Nigella Lawson's books are good for that), the ingredients and amounts they list work pretty well (again, if you're not baking). I'll never part with this, but I wouldn't give this to anyone just starting out on their homemade ice cream adventure.