SUMMERTIME IS HOMEMADE ICE CREAM TIME

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Whether you devour the icy heat-beater freshly frozen or put it by to savor on one of those scorching August afternoons, you're sure to agree that homemade ice cream is just about the best taste around for a summertime dessert. It's cool, refreshing, and-best of all-a natural treat that you create yourself!

HOW TO FREEZE FOOLPROOF DESSERTS

The basic recipe for preparing your own ice cream is quite simple . . . just remember "M.E.S.S."! The acronym stands for milk (and cream), eggs, salt, and sweetener . . . a formula that's used as the foundation for all old-fashioned ice creams. The milk, cream, and eggs contain important natural stabilizing elements that will keep your homemade batch smooth, even after freezing . . . while the salt and sweetener have a crucial effect on the taste of the finished product. Besides those basic ingredients, all the mixture will need are any fruits, extracts, or other flavorings you might want to add.

However, the M. E. S. S. recipe isn't a hard and fast rule . . . there are some possible variations. If you'd like to avoid the high cost of supermarket whipping cream, for example, it's possible to substitute half-and-half . . . although ice cream made with the less expensive dairy product won't have as smooth a texture as will a confection containing heavy cream, and the lighter dessert will tend to ice up when stored for longer than a day or so.

You might also want to use honey in place of processed sugar, but be prepared for an ice cream with a subtly different taste. Use the natural sweetener sparingly, and never in as large a proportion as sugar. A good rule of thumb is to start with only half as much honey as the amount of sugar that's called for in the recipe, and add more-to tasteif you feel it's needed.

Keep in mind, too, that honey doesn't permit the cream to whip up as well as sugar does, and will sometimes even failto blend well with other ingredients. So if the end product tastes flat or has a grainy texture, you can probably blame it on the amount of honey you used. Just keep experimenting (and tasting!) . . . and you'll eventually hit upon your own version ofthe ideal homemade treat.

If you're making a fruit-flavored ice cream, the natural ingredients will need to be sweetened before they're added to the M.E. S. S. mix, since a certain amount of any fruit's natural flavor is lost in the freezing process. Mash up about 3/!, of your produce and add sugar or honey to please your tastebuds. The remaining berries, peaches, etc. should be left whole or cut into pieces-depending upon their size-and put in during the final minutesofchurning. (Fruit. ice cream, by the way, has a more muted color than do the fruits themselves . . . so don't be surprised if, for example, your apricot - flavored confection turnsout to be white!)

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