Reply #28: The Ice Cream Bowl is a Kitchenaid brand Accessory

[Stinky The Clown]

It is very cleverly designed to fit any size Kitchenaid mixer, from the tilt-head 4.5 Qt model to the largest 6 Qt model. There are only three pieces in the kit. The bowl (which like any of the current electric ice cream makers on the market today has an aluminum inner bowl bonded to a plastic outer bowl with a liquid "ice" solution sealed in), the beater, and the connector to hook the beater to the mixer head. Like any other ice cream maker, you freeze the bowl solid (all manufacturers suggest you simply store the bowl in your freezer so it is always ready), make your mix, put the bowl in place and add the mix. 20 minutes later it is ready. Pour the product into a storage container and put it in your freezer to "harden".

Here's a universal recipe for making a simple fruit sorbet:

Use any soft fruit you like (no apples, pears, etc.). Peaches, mangoes, pineapples, plums, papayas, melons, kiwis, etc., work very well for this. Citrus will work well, too, but needs some adjustment to the recipe to get good results. (Citrus has higher liquids and lower solids) The fruit is best if ripe, but even slightly under ripe fruit will work fine if you just add a bit more sugar.

Peel the fruit and puree it in a food processor. Depending on your processor, you may have to work in batches. It is important to get the fruit such that no piece is larger than, say, a pea. Larger chunks should be reduced in size.

Work enough fruit to equal 1/2 the size of the batch you want to make (or, said another way, 1/2 the capacity of your ice cream maker).

The measures are:

2 parts fruit puree
1 part water
1 part sugar

Heat the water on the stove. When near boiling, add the sugar. Stir until the water goes from cloudy to clear. Remove from the stove and allow to cool slightly. Add the sugar water to the fruit (or add the fruit to the sugar water) and mix well. Place in the refrigerator until ice cold.

When the mix is completely cold (not just cool .... COLD), run it through the ice cream maker according to instructions. When done, glop it out into a storage container (Tupperware? One of those semi-disposable Glad storage containers, etc.) and freeze it at least 4 hours and preferably over night.

Enjoy!

Once you get the hang of it, start to experiment. Mix fruits. Adjust the sweetness. Add alcohol (champagne comes to mind)(adjust the freeze to compensate for alcohol's "anti-freeze" effect), add larger fruit chunks if the fruit is **really** ripe and sweet, use milk or cream in place of some of the water. Get creative. But the important thing is .... have fun!