Why Should I Make Homemade Ice Cream?

12 Reasons to Make Homemade Ice Cream

Ice Cream Step Seven

The Spruce / Molly Watson

There are many reasons to make homemade ice cream (some may say go to the trouble of making it!)—from fabulous flavor to tons of fun (family fun!). These are the top 12:

1. It's crazy delicious. This is the single most important reason. It's all about the flavor. Homemade ice cream, without artificial ingredients, fake thickeners, or unnatural stabilizers to keep it "fresh" for weeks (or months!) in the grocery store freezer, is amazingly flavorful and actually fresh tasting. It's true. If you take the time to make homemade ice cream, you will see that store-bought, even the super high-quality kind, lacks a certain...just-made quality. Make something with fun flavors, like Spumoni ice cream.

2. It's easy. Despite what you might think, making homemade ice cream is relatively easy. You don't even need an ice cream maker! Or rock salt!

3. Fruit ice cream is even easier. It's true, There's a whole method for making fruit ice cream that makes it even easier than other kinds of ice cream. Check it out with this Blueberry Ice Cream recipe.

4. It turns a glut of fresh summer fruit into dessert. Since, as just mentioned, fruit ice cream is so easy to make, if you have a bunch of super-ripe summer fruit sitting around (peaches, plums, strawberries, and more!) and you're not sure what to do with it before it skirts over that edge from super-ripe to no-thank-you-mushy, use it to make ice cream!

5. Pies get lonely. Homemade ice cream gives them some delicious à la mode company.

6. Cakes get lonely, too. Why do people never say "cake à la mode"? Why is it "cake and ice cream" instead? These are questions for the ages, but when they arise, simply add some homemade ice cream to the mix and feel lots better.

7. People freak out about how good buttermilk ice cream is. Seriously, Buttermilk Ice Cream is remarkably easy to make and has a mysteriously light and bright flavor that will get your guests guessing what that flavor is. Prepare yourself to convince them that, no, it's not ​lemon.

8. Everyone at the table will stand in awe of your culinary moxie. If impressing others is something you like to do, there are few better ways to bowl over guests than by serving homemade ice cream. Prepare yourself for phrases like "You're amazing" and "I can't believe you did this" and "This is the best thing I've ever tasted."

9. It's hot out. Too hot to go to the store. Full stop. Freeze stuff instead.

10. It's also horribly humid. Ice cream won't lower the humidity, but it will make you care less about how terribly sticky the air is.

11. You need an excuse to open the freezer a lot. And cool down. And taste homemade ice cream.

12. Children should know where ice cream comes from. And adults, too. Making ice cream is a fun (and delicious) family "project" on hot days. And, honestly, a happy reminder of summer on colder days, too.