Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I wouldn't really suggest this book if you are interested in making ice cream at home. It comes across much more as a vanity piece than a serious cookbook. Many pages are devoted to telling you how very special the ice cream makers are and how very special their ingredients are. The book is full of self congratulatory photos of the owners of Van Leeuwen. If you are a big fan of their ice cream, then sure, you might want to buy this book. But if you are interested in making ice cream at home, there are better books out there. I suggest The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. Some of the problems I found with the book: The authors take two full pages to tell you that they use the very best (extra special!) vanilla beans but they don't tell you how to buy them yourself. Anytime they mention chocolate, they tell you that you should buy the exact same chocolate that they buy, because of course, it is so special. They say it is available in Whole Foods but is isn't available at my Whole Foods. Come on, there is a lot of great chocolate being made today. The authors insistence that you buy the brand they buy comes across as somewhat self involved and annoying. The book features a full page photo of spit passion fruit but they don't tell you how to use it. In fact, they tell you to buy froze passion fruit puree. I found editing problems, the wrong words, mistaken page references, and questionable quantities. For instance, the recipe for ginger ice cream calls for way too much sugar. Speaking of ginger, the authors specify the length of ginger used. This is not as useful as weight would be since pieces of ginger vary so much in width. The New York Times recently suggested that the reason to buy this book would be for their vegan ice cream recipes. I would have to agree. But there are only nine vegan ice cream recipes in the book. So, if you are interested, you might want to start with the one printed in the NYT and see if it works for you. The reality of making ice cream at home is that it is easy. It doesn't require special ingredients. It doesn't take a lot of time. And the results are always better than ice cream bought in the grocery store.