An updated version with new recipes and still the same good easy reading and wanting to run out or work at making a sorbet, Ice cream, or whatever your frozen treat is. A wonderful book.

Delicious!!! And such a great variety! The recipes are custard-based, which leads to a smooth and very creamy mouth feel. I've enjoyed making a couple of the recipes and will enjoy making more!

This is a must for ice cream lovers. Prepare to be amazed and enthused by the recipes. This is far more than a revamp of an older book. New recipes are added and some less popular ones left out.

Love love love this book. After reading the digital version I went and purchased the hardback and can't wait to get cooking!

#NetGalley #Summer #Summer2018 #IceCream

I loved this book. Easy to follow step by step recipes to create professional and yummy ice cream. This is a to have for this summer.

It’s just spent a week over 90 in Minnesota, a month after the last snowstorm, so it’s definitely time to start thinking about ice cream. If you have made ice cream at home, you have probably at least heard of David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, originally published in 2008 and generally considered to be a seminal text on the topic. The author is also very generous with sharing recipes on his blog, so even if you haven’t purchased the book, chances are you’ve at least read over his recipes.

I’ve owned The Perfect Scoop for about five years now, which is as long as I’ve owned an ice-cream machine, and I’ve made a good dozen recipes out of it. Lebovitz’s vanilla ice cream isn’t necessarily my favorite vanilla, but his caramel base is to die for, and his avocado ice cream—yes, I said avocado ice cream—is simply the best. This year, for the book’s 10th anniversary, Ten Speed Press has put out a revised and updated edition of The Perfect Scoop, and of course I had to nab a copy so I could see all the differences.

The Perfect Scoop, 2nd edition, cover
Ten Speed Press
If you’re not familiar with the first edition and just came here for ice-cream recipe testing, click here to jump to that part!

If you did read the first edition and want to know what’s new, keep reading here.

First, the non-recipe-related changes. There is, of course, a new introduction. All of the flavor text—that is, the cute stories and tips and tricks—has been revised and edited, although rarely substantively. The author’s recommendations on brands and companies to buy from have been updated to better reflect 2018, such as Amazon being listed as a supplier in the back, and a lot of the pictures have been replaced with . . . different pictures of the same thing. (I’m not sure why they did that in particular, but they did.) If you’ve read Lebovitz’s blog before, you’ll know that he’s got a little bit of that American-who-moved-to-Paris snobbery going on. I find it charming, but your mileage may vary, and the snobbery is a touch toned down in the second edition.

And now, here are the recipe-related changes! As a note, all the recipes that appear in both volumes appear to be identical, as are the “Perfect Pairings” and “Variations” at the bottom, except as identified below. The following recipes are new for the second edition, although I believe a few of them appeared on Lebovitz’s website:

Butterscotch Ice Cream with Peanut Butter, Chocolate, and Pretzel Brittle (replacing Butterscotch Pecan Ice Cream, which is now listed as Butter Pecan ice cream, as a “Perfect Pairing”)
Candied Bacon and Bourbon Ice Cream
Caramel “Crack” Ice Cream
S’mores Ice Cream
Caramel Corn Ice Cream
Labneh Ice Cream with Pistachio-Sesame Brittle
Raspberry Froze
Cucumber Gin Sorbet
Spritz Sorbet
Frozen Gimlets
Negroni Slush
Chocolate Shell (a topping)
Hot Honey (also a topping)
Also, the Champagne-Cassis Granita has been renamed the Kir Granita. Here are the recipes from the first edition that have been left out of the second edition:

Kinako Ice Cream
Rice Gelato
Pear Pecorino Ice Cream
Green Pea Ice Cream
Parsley Ice Cream
Black Pepper Ice Cream
Saffron Sorbet
Papaya Lime Sorbet
What do all the recipes left out of the second edition have in common? Most of them are more savory (and a little out there, in the case of the green-pea ice cream). If you’re interested in some of these strangely savory flavors, then it’s probably worth tracking down the first edition, perhaps in a library, to have them on hand. You’ll also notice that a lot of the new recipes for the second edition are sticky sweet, and a few more of them are alcoholic, especially the new sorbets and granitas. Lebovitz indicates in the introduction that it’s to better reflect current tastes, especially those of Americans, and I don’t think he’s necessarily wrong.

And now, for the best part of any cookbook review: Stephanie makes one of the new recipes! I’ve decided to make the s’mores recipe, since I ran them all by my spouse and he promised to eat more than half of this one. Lebovitz has previously put the recipe for this ice cream on his blog, available here, if you’d like to see the official wording and pictures.

S’mores Ice Cream

Ice cream base

1 cup (250 mL) whole milk
⅔ cup (130 g) sugar
Pinch of salt
2 cups (500 mL) heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Fudge ripple

½ cup (100 g) sugar
⅓ cup (100 g) light corn syrup, rice syrup, Golden syrup, or agave nectar
½ cup (125 mL) water
6 tablespoons (50 g) unsweetened cocoa powder, natural or Dutch process
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Mix-ins

4 cups (185 g) mini marshmallows
1 cup (95 g) crumbled graham crackers or gingersnaps (about 10 cookies)
Protip: Before making your ice cream, put the bowl of your ice-cream machine into the freezer. Wait 2 to 3 days until it’s frozen. You’re welcome.

Make the Ice-Cream Base

1. If you’ve made ice cream before, this is basically “make a vanilla ice-cream base.” If not, here are some better directions: Make an ice bath by putting a 2-quart bowl or pan inside a larger bowl you’ve partially filled with ice and water. Strain the cream into the bowl and leave the strainer on top of the bowl. Set aside.

Ice cream base
This is the completed base in the ice bath, but that’s the ice bath.
2. Lebovitz recommends doing one thing (see his version), but I prefer the Julia Child method of custard making, so that’s what I used. Put the egg yolks in a bowl—save the whites for something like this—then beat them with a whisk or a hand mixer until they’re a lighter yellow. Add the sugar, beating until they turn a nice lemony color.

A bowl and a mixer
I’ve abused this poor Kitchen-Aid three-speed mixer so badly over its lifetime.
3. Warm the milk up on the stove with the salt in a slightly oversized pot until it’s hot to the touch, then dump it into the egg mixture in a thin stream, very slowly, until you’ve incorporated it all. This is much easier if you put the milk into a measuring cup with a spout, like this one.

4. Return the egg-sugar-milk-salt mixture to the pot and heat over very low heat for about 5 to 7 minutes, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula, until the mixture thickens slightly.

A coated spatula
It should be about this thick.
5. Strain the mixture into the cream in the ice bath and stir until as cool as you can get it. Add the vanilla. The texture should be, well, pretty much the same as melted ice cream, for obvious reasons. Put it in the fridge overnight or in the freezer for about an hour, depending on your level of patience. Save the ice bath for the next part.

Make the Fudge Ripple

1. Put all the fudge-ripple ingredients except the vanilla extract into a small saucepan and whisk it until smooth, then heat it until boiling. Turn the heat down a little and let it simmer for a minute, then remove it from the heat and add the vanilla.

2. Either put it in the ice bath from the base that you correctly didn’t discard yet or cover it and throw it in the fridge or freezer until cool.

Ice Cream, Assemble!

1. As every single ice-cream recipe will tell you, freeze the base in your ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Also put the container you’ll be storing the ice cream in into the freezer to chill—I used a 1.5-liter loaf pan because I thought it might look cool, but I also have quart-sized paper ice-cream containers.

2. While the ice cream is in the machine, torch the marshmallows. Sadly, I don’t own a crème brûlée torch, and my spouse refused to get out the welding torch for this (Julia Child would have done it, okay?!), so I used the broiler. Be careful not to overbrown the marshmallows, even if, like me, you usually just set them on fire when eating actual s’mores. Use a silicone baking mat or some other nonstick surface. Don’t use parchment or foil, which is what I did—they stuck.

Toasted marshmallows
They look pretty, though.
3. When the ice-cream machine is done, layer the ice cream as follows: fudge ripple, graham-cracker bits, mini marshmallows, ice cream, repeat. How thick the layers are depends on your particular container. Try not to stir it, because you want there to be pockets of fudge. You also may want to work quickly; otherwise everything will turn into a mess. As a note, I only used about half of the mix-ins, alas.

Layering ingredients in the loaf pan
I was right: the loaf pan did look pretty good.
4. Delayed gratification! Stuff it into the freezer until it’s firm enough to scoop. Soothe your sad feelings by licking the spoons.

Finished ice cream
Et voilà!
So, if you’ve never made homemade ice cream before, is this book a good place to start? Definitely. Lebovitz lays out everything in the beginning with numbers and pictures and as many separate steps as possible. It’s clear he’s trying to make homemade ice cream as accessible as he possibly can, and the new edition only helps. For example, he’s moved the reminder to put the frozen bowl in the freezer before you start, preferably two or three days before, as the instructions say, rather than the very last step.

Lebovitz does, of course, have the usual admonitions about using the highest-quality ingredients that one can. Ice-cream making isn’t a cheap hobby; for one thing, you need an ice-cream maker, and while I’ve had luck finding them for as low as $4.50 at a thrift store, it’s much more likely that you’ll be paying $35 to $50 for the bog-standard Kitchen-Aid variety. He even makes the case for paying for one of the compressor variety, which can run up into the thousands of dollars. The ingredients aren’t necessarily cheap, either, since most recipes require a pretty good quantity of heavy whipping cream. Ingredients alone probably run in the range of $4 $10 a pint range, so you can’t even argue that it’s economical, unless your previous ice-cream budget was entirely Izzy’s. However, it’s fun, it’s satisfying, and it feels a little like magic.

What ice cream would you make out of the recipes in this book? If you had the first edition, are you sad that the green-pea ice cream was left out?

This book is both beautifully presented, with detailed imagery, the flavours of the ice creams are so varied, and the instructions and guidelines at the front of the book are perfect.

3 stars. Why? Well, I liked this book but I prefer the ones that have more pictures about the results of each recipe. It was difficult to understand some steps to prepare the recipes since I am a beginner, there are some concepts I still can't understand. Although, this book gave me a lot of information(it was a really complete book) because I was really ignorant about how to make an ice cream properly and I used to not to pay attention to the accompaniments, I mean a homemade ice cream for me was just a mix of cream, condensed milk and milk LOL.

One of the best ice cream books I've tried -- and I've made over a dozen of these recipes, with excellent results. My favorites so far are Malted Milk ice cream, Fresh Mint ice cream, Panforte, Pink Grapefruit-Champagne sorbet, Pina Colada sorbet. Looking forward to trying the Caramel "Crack" Ice cream new to this edition, as well as the Raspberry-Rose Sorbet, which I am making tonight. David Lebovitz gives detailed, yet simple instructions with wonderful combinations and suggestions for how to pair it with accompaniments that he also provides. My go-to for classic ice cream.

Showing that frozen desserts are much, much more than ice cream, David Lebovitz gives us this book after years of practice churning, freezing, whipping, finding fresh fruits, toasting nuts and all sorts of other activities. A well-rounded comprehensive (and yummy) guide to ice creams, granitas, gelato, sorbets, and sherbets.

David Lebovitz is a icon in cooking circles, so it stands to reason that his celebrated cookbook, The Perfect Scoop, Revised and Updated: 200 Recipes for Ice Creams, Sorbets, Gelatos, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments, is one to notice. Who doesn’t love frozen desserts? And when they’re homemade, they are even better.

This excellent cookbook has all the information needed to successfully make decadent, cool desserts at home. The instructions are clear and concise, and the photographs (while great, there aren’t photos of every recipe, but how many pictures of slightly different chocolate ice creams do you really need?) are absolutely mouthwatering.

Chapter One starts with the basics and step-by-step instructions on how to make a proper cooked custard (anyone who hasn’t tasted homemade ice cream with a cooked custard base has really missed out). It also has a list of essential ingredients and equipment necessary for success, as well as a primer on finding the best ice cream machine for your personal needs.

The real difficulty starts in Chapter 2 – deciding which ice cream, frozen yogurt or gelato to make first. There are dozens of frozen delights to choose from ranging from plain basic vanilla to Lavender Honey, Tiramisu, and Lemon-Speculoos, to name a few; the varieties are incredible, and there is something for everyone.

Sorbets and Sherbets are next, followed by Granitas. It doesn’t stop there: the book also covers sauces and toppings, as well as mix-ins and then edible vessels to serve the ice cream in or on, like meringue nests, brownies and profiteroles.

If you’re an ice cream aficionado, this is definitely the cookbook for you. It should be included in every cookbook collection and definitely have a hallowed place on a convenient shelf in the kitchen where it will be used constantly.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

What a gem! Loved the very detailed information and instructions in the first part of the book to make sure the reader is understanding the recipe correctly. Tons of tips and tricks to test out on the delicious recipes inside. I've read through quite a few books on ice cream making and this one is by far the most comprehensive and informative that I've found.

With the warmer months around the corner, I am looking forward to making my own ice cream. There are so many interesting recipes and I am looking forward to making many of them. Great illustrations and easy recipes make this a great gift option.

I've been a fan and follower of David Lebovitz's blog for years now. And I'm the type of ice cream lover who will eat some even in the winter.

I have an ice cream maker here at home and I've tried several of the recipes from this cookbook. They are all SOOOOOO good.

The perfect Scoop is a Perfect Update, with 12 more recipes, which I so appreciate!!, new pictures and a fresh design. I can never get enough of this author! If you don't own a copy of The Perfect Scoop, now is the time to make a Perfect Purchase and add this all time classic to your repertoire! You won't regret it. These are recipes that make some of the best ice cream dishes you'll ever put between your lips! I already own the Perfect Scoop, and if there was only one recipe book that I could have on the subject of ice cream, this book would be it!!

Beautiful book with fantastic recipes that gives you everything you might wish for in regards of icecream and what you want to it with!

Who doesn't love icecream?
And who doesn't love making it at home?
If your answer is not ME to both of those, get this book and fall in love with both!

This book has a huge selection of a lot of different ice-creams, a lot of different flavours and ideas that really everyone can find their personal favourites.

I love that it does not only include milk-based ice creams but also fruit based ones!
A lot of books only show the more typical ice creams and while that is fine, i love that this book includes a lot more than that and with that offers a recipes for really everyone!

I also love that it includes recipes for cookies (to make ice cream sandwiches of course!), brownies, different sauces and toppings and a lot more so that beside the actual ice you have anything else you can dream of to eat it with right there as well.

All the recipes are fantastic!

The only two small little thing are,
- that i did not find in this book was a milk-based ice cream without Egg in it.
I get that the egg gives the ice a smoother and it also makes it possible to freeze it and keep it longer without basically just having a huge brick when you take it back out. But it would still have been nice to have the option. Now i am not a hundred percent sure if it really has not even one egg-less milk based recipes. Its possible there is a LOT of recipes in here so i might have overlooked it.
But i think it would have been a very fitting addition in a book that offers so many options to have.
- more pictures!
I already mentioned in other cookbook reviews i did that i LOVE too many pictures in my cookbooks. And while this book has BEAUTIFUL pictures in the pictures it has, i wish it would show ALL the ice they offer in this book. They take such stunning pictures of the ones they share, it would have been fantastic to see all of them!

But since both of those "complains" are very personal to me i didn't want to take any points from the overall rating because its just way to stunning of a book to not give it the full stars!

If you love sweets this is defiantly a MUST!

David Lebovitz at his quintessential best. Whether you are looking for the perfect single scoop indulgence or the ultimate make-ahead dessert to wow guests with you will find it on these pages. The advice and recipes are clear as ever, but what I really appreciated is the originality of the flavour combinations. It made me think it's time we invested in a better ice-cream maker - although, obviously, this is by no means necessary. .

I am loving trying all of these ice creams and with the nice variety included it gives me courage to try and experiment on my own!

The Perfect Scoop, Revised and Updated by David Lebovitz is a nice collection of classic ice-cream recipes with plenty of photographs. The forward by the author explaining the research he put into the original book, and also the revision, is well-written. I make ice-cream quite often during the spring and summer months, and these recipes are easy to follow, with a nice variety of flavors and styles to suit every palate - toppings and baked goods are also included! It's a little too cold to try any of the recipes right now (for me at least!!!), but I look forward to doing so in warmer weather. A+

If you like ice-cream, you will need to read this book. This book includes recipes such as Goat Cheese Ice Cream, Olive Oil Ice Cream, and Anise Ice Cream that you probably never heard of! It also includes the whole ice-cream package such as the toppings and the cone recipes. It comes with the basics knowledge and easy to follow instruction. A must read for ice-cream lovers.