Rating: 
Summary: Great book for serious ice cream makers
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for serious ice cream makers
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: For All Ice Cream Geeks
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Good sourcebook
Review: This book tells you everything you need to know to make frozen deserts, & then some. It's so concerned with the details that it even informs the reader that some parts of the recipes won't work if you live at over 6,000 feet altitude! Where other books tell you to use "simple syrup," this book actually goes into HOW to make it, & the advantages & disadvantages of different methods (I've tried both, & believe me, I'll stick with the heating method from now on). My only complaint (as a complete beginner) is that I would have liked to have seen some more basic deserts. They have recipes for fancy Seville Orange sorbet & fancy Orange Blossom sorbet, but no recipe for plain old orange sorbet. They have recipes for Coffee granita, Expresso Coffee ice cream, Coffee Fudge Ripple ice cream, but no recipe for plain old Coffee ice cream (just leave out the fudge ripple?) or Coffee sorbet (is there such a thing?). And for such an otherwise complete book on frozen deserts & drinks, what about slushes/frozen carbonated drinks? The term is not even mentioned in the book, athough they go into depth on more obscure items like "Sa'alabs" & "Kulfis" & "Spooms!"
Rating:
Summary: Great Recipes, Useful Theory and Tools
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD BOOK, BUT WRITTEN MORE FOR THE UK
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: GOOD BOOK, BUT WRITTEN MORE FOR THE UK
Review: 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.
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