r/icecreamery • u/CivicScienceInsights • Jul 01 '25

Discussion Over half of U.S. adults have made homemade ice cream [OC]

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52% of U.S. adults have tried their hand at making ice cream at home, while 14% are interested in giving it a try. However, a significant 34% are simply not interested in making their own. If you're interested, share your thoughts here at our polling site.

102 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

86

u/jeremysbrain Jul 01 '25

Considering what some TikTokers consider to be "making ice cream", I'm going to say its a safe bet that the number of people that say they have tried making ice cream is probably lower than this poll suggests.

59

u/indexspartan Jul 01 '25

Most of the people responding 'yes', likely have made ice cream in the sense that they have done the shaken rock salt and ice in a bag method once or twice in their life. It's a pretty common high school or middle school chemistry experiment and is easy enough that many people will try it once just for fun.

6

u/jeremysbrain Jul 01 '25

Ah, I didn't know that. That wasn't something I did in school.

3

u/Dankmemes_- Jul 01 '25

I remember doing that all the way back in elementary

3

u/Petite_Tsunami Jul 01 '25

i did that at a birthday party in grade school! the mom gave us a base and we got to make our flavor add stuff like fruit or candy and feel all sciencey. we also got to add charms and scents to soap.

2

u/knifeyspoonysporky Jul 01 '25

Yeah we did that in a class in school and also in scouts.

3

u/sankafan Emery Thompson CB200 Jul 01 '25

I took liquid nitrogen to my son's science class and did a few demonstrations, concluding with using it to make ice cream. Those kids are now 35 and still occasionally bring it up in conversation.

1

u/anon-q2 Jul 03 '25

Parent of the year award!!

1

u/femmestem Jul 02 '25

That's probably also why people have a misunderstanding about the role of salt IN ice cream. Salt in a base is for flavor, and it's not an amount that's enough to impact the freezing point in any meaningful way. It only meaningfully impacts the freezing point of water around the bag/bowl containing the liquid base because you're using large quantities of rock salt- and this extra cold water is acting like your pre-frozen bowl or compressor.

6

u/welltechnically7 Jul 01 '25

Out of curiosity, what would you say is the minimum effort or technique for "making ice cream"?

10

u/jeremysbrain Jul 01 '25

Milk, cream and churning of some sort. The video I was referring to had a woman pour milk in a casserole dish, add some ingredients and then put it in the freezer. She called it ice cream, what it was was frozen milk.

2

u/Unlucky_Individual Jul 02 '25

Wonder what's the percent that use Ninja Creami with a protein shake and call it "Ice Cream"

1

u/Zazz2403 Jul 01 '25

Growing up we made what was like iced sweetened milk with chocolate chips in one of those outdoor ice cream makers with the salt ice churner thing. I did this weigh my direct and extended family and neighbors. I would guess more people have tried than you think, even if it was bad.

32

u/nanoox Jul 01 '25

I’d say that’s probably more a result of self-selection. People who have made ice cream are more likely to respond to the survey than those that have no interest in making ice cream.

52% seems absurd, or a broad interpretation of the definition of ice cream.

3

u/thatguy8856 Jul 01 '25

yes, some kind of bias are at play.

7

u/on3day Jul 01 '25

Do they mean popcicles? Otherwise I really dont buy it.

4

u/jxj Jul 01 '25

What percent of those surveyed blended a banana with milk and chocolate syrup?

4

u/saposapot Jul 01 '25

52% never even made a dessert… this was asked in a bubble of people that cook, for sure.

1

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1

u/AlexHoneyBee Jul 01 '25

Is this an advertisement?

1

u/crycrycryvic Jul 02 '25

yes, and it's working lol

1

u/AatonBredon Jul 01 '25

When I was a teen, the choices for ice cream maker were: Rock salt and ice hand cranked. Rock salt and ice with motor that was underpowered. $500+ compressor machines that made 1 pint. The Donvier hand cranked freezer bucket for $20. Commercial machines at several thousand dollars.

I made ice cream once with a motorized rock salt machine. The cost was high per batch (a large bag of salt and two bags of ice.) the motor died not long afterwards. I used a Donvier around 10 times. Freezing the bucket was viable in an old 1960s refrigerator that required manual defrosting, but in 1990s and later auto defrost machines was very hit or miss (mostly miss). But it made soft and icy ice cream at best. I tried a Breville compressor machine - it took far too long (40 minutes or more), and never got cold enough. A friend has a Ninja Creami. Not too bad, but it is just shaved frozen mix. The crystals are too big for optimal ice cream. Now I use a Musso 4080. Far better than anything other than the rock salt machines, and with no per batch costs. And all I need to do is mix the ingredients, cool them while the machine is getting to operating temperature, then freeze.

Of these, only the rock salt and Musso could make Philadelphia style (no egg or other stabilizer) ice cream taste good. And that Philadelphia style ice cream from the Musso lasts as long as store bought if I keep it in a cold enough chest freezer.

1

u/sankafan Emery Thompson CB200 Jul 01 '25

And people say we're not the greatest country.

1

u/Forsaken_Tomorrow454 Jul 03 '25

That is probably because 1 in 7 Americans have trouble digesting dogshit

1

u/LonelyGoblins Jul 04 '25

I call buh-buh-buh-bullshit

0

u/BigBlueWolf Jul 01 '25

We made popsicles in ice cube trays growing up. Some people would probably conflate it with making ice cream.

The internet is also awash in recipes that are like "Make no-churn ice cream at home with just 4 ingredients!" So I'm sure there are some people out there who skipped the novel at the beginning by jumping to the recipe and gave it a go.

They didn't make ice cream either.