A nice article in the Sacramento Bee today...

Gearing up: I camp scream, you camp scream...

Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, May 19, 2005

Ice cream in camp sounds enticing - even better if you've made it from scratch. A fun option is the Camper's Dream Ice Cream Maker, a plexiglass sphere about the size of a soccer ball.

It offers a playful way to make dessert. But the process takes finesse. We asked Maurice Read and Mary Anne Moore of Sacramento to try it out with Moore's grandchildren, ages 5 and 7.

To start the process, you load ice and rock salt in one end of the ball and ice cream ingredients (cream, sugar and half-and-half) into the interior cylinder. After 20 to 25 minutes of rolling the ball around - no kicking - you should have a pint of ice cream.

One experienced user who raved about the ball said it worked best when the ingredients were stirred every few minutes. Read followed the manufacturer's instructions, which recommend stirring after 10 minutes.

Read, a former restaurant owner, is a veteran with a hand-cranked ice cream maker, which has a dasher that stirs the ingredients constantly. When he opened the ball at 10 minutes into the process, he found that some liquid had frozen hard to the sides, but the center was still liquid. Also, the stirring process got some cream into the threads of the lid, which froze in place.

"Once you get the ice cream out, it's very good," Read said. "But I had to use a wrench to open it.

"The kids had a great time doing it."

The ball's stir stick is designed to fit into the lid and act as a wrench.

The Camper's Dream Ice Cream Maker is $29.95, and it is available at REI stores and online.