FINDS

Grrreat Frosted Plates

We like these German-made plates and bowls in frosty-cool colors for chilly summer foods like ice cream.

$9.99 each at most Macy’s.

Ice Cream Cranks

One question that visitors to The Times Test Kitchen inevitably ask during the height of ice cream making season: Which ice cream maker is the best to buy? In the Test Kitchen, we use a workhorse of a machine from Viva. It’s pricey, but it can handle the demands of multiple recipe testing--certainly better than our waistlines can.

But what about the ice cream makers we’d buy for our home kitchens? There are many models on the market but only one basic question: How much do you want to spend?

We’ll ignore the fact that you can shell out close to $1,200 for the beautiful stainless steel commercial-grade “Dream Ice Cream Machine” we spotted in the Sur La Table catalog. The machines we more realistically dream about are the $400 to $500 imported Italian models from companies like Simac.

Only one of us has splurged on one of these. And he’s glad he did. “I don’t have to go out and buy ice, I don’t have to add salt--I can make ice cream at a moment’s notice,” he brags. “It’s wonderful.”

But do you have to spend so much money to get good ice cream?

White Mountain’s old-fashioned wood-barreled hand-cranked model, about $150, and its $200 electric cousin are great-looking and less expensive, but you have to add salt and ice. And like the man said, you do have to plan ahead.

For still less money (a lot less than the Italian jobs--say $50 to $60) are the modern-looking but still low-tech hand-crank machines from companies like Donvier. A canister that you chill in your freezer gets the ice cream cold and you get the thing going with three or four easy cranks of the handle.

“It’s a densely textured ice cream, like a gelato,” says the columnist who is the proud owner of a Donvier. “It works well.”

And in the $70 to $80 range are the electric models from Krups, Cuisinart and other companies. Like the Donvier, these machines also rely on a pre-frozen canister to chill the ice cream. But you don’t have to do even the slightest bit of cranking. What’s more, if you consider the canister a permanent fixture in your freezer, you too can make ice cream at a moment’s notice.

“Yeah, well,” says our big spender, “that canister warms up as the machine runs. My machine stays cool; if I want ice cream with a good, stiff texture, I just keep the machine running.”

He has a point. Most of the under-$100 models produce ice cream that’s closer to Soft-Serv than Breyers. But is that so bad? The other point he makes--that he can make a second or a third batch right away--is certainly unarguable.

Still, in the hope of saving ourselves some money, we tested the same vanilla ice cream recipe in three machines: a Krups, a Cuisinart and the big-money Viva. The results: inconclusive. All of the machines produced wonderful ice cream. In fact, when we later taste-tested several premium brands of store-bought plain vanilla ice cream, we couldn’t find one we liked better than the homemade stuff.

We can confidently say that the $70 to $80 machines make terrific ice cream. Will we stop envying our big-spending colleague with the Italian machine? Of that, we’re less sure.

Nonfat? Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

They say low-fat ice cream sales have dipped recently as Americans collectively give the heave-ho to their diets. But there’s one icy product that has more going for it than diminished fat. Sorbets are nonfat, yes, but they taste really good. You can easily make your own, but as two companies new to the Southern California marketplace show, great sorbet depends on great fruit.

The most impressive of the two is Seattle Sorbet, bursting with flavor. Among the choices: intensely fruity Dark Sweet Cherry and Italian Strawberry (made from Willamette Valley strawberries and basil); alcohol-enhanced Blackberry Cabernet, Electric Lemonade (amaretto and vodka) and Tequila Lime, and caffeine-enhanced Chocolate Espresso (it is from Seattle).

Paradisio Sorbet goes for more exotic fruit flavors. Made in small batches with cane juice and no corn syrup or pectin, the sorbets are available in the Los Angeles area for the first time this week at Bristol Farms stores. Zarzamora (Mexican blackberry), Guanabana (known as soursop in many parts of the world), Mango, Coconut, Watermelon, Pineapple and Strawberry are some of the cool flavors available.

Seattle Sorbet, $2.79 to $3.39 per pint at Hughes, Bristol Farms, Whole Foods, Wild Oats and Gelsons. Paradisio Sorbet, $3.59 to $3.99 per pint at Bristol Farms.