Ice Cream - How Much in Liters?!

Asked by swestaway. Answered on 14th October 2011

Full question

I am just about to buy an ice cream maker - in order to try Nigella's recipes from "Forever summer". The only ice cream maker I can find here has the capacity of 1 liter. I do not have a clue is this is a too small or not. It would help me a lot if you tell me how many liters of ice cream I get when Nigella writes that it is for 6-8 persons, or 10-12 or 8 persons. Thank you in advance! Best regards, Suzana W

Our answer

Unfortunately portions of ice cream can be a little subjective but generally it should be 2 to 3 scoops per person. A scoop is roughly 60ml or 1/4 cup so a recipe serving 8 people is likely to yield just short of 1litre, or 4 cups.

A 1 liter capacity ice cream maker should be sufficient as it will be towards the top end of the capacity for the home versions of this piece of equipment. It is equivalent to 1 quart (2 US pints) so make sure that you have a suitable sized freezer proof container to store the ice cream in once you have made it.

Some ice cream makers come with a second inner can to make ice cream with and you will find that you may get better results if you add a small amount of clear spirit (such as vodka) into the gap between the inner and outer cans as the alcohol will help to chill the inner can more quckly (and as alcohol freezes at a much lower temperature than water it will not freeze solid). However do check with your user manual before doing this as models do vary. You shoud also keep all of your ice cream making equipment scrupulously clean, as may recipe conantain uncooked eggs and any traces left on the equipment could cause contamination when you make the next batch of ice cream.