Little chefs get a quick and easy way to make ice cream

Your little ones have come home from school and want something cold and tasty, but wouldn’t you know it, there are no ice blocks in the freezer! Argh! It’s cool, because with a new $45 gadget, there’s a way to fix that.

Heading to stores in November, Kambrook’s Soft Scoops Ice Cream Maker uses the traditional freezing bowl technology with a small motorised stirrer to make ice cream quick and easy.

The tech inside is pretty common: unlike the $300-400 ice cream makers, there’s no compressor technology, with the bowl using a liquid like what’s in those little freezer packs you throw in lunch boxes. This liquid is inside the walls of the bowl, and when you freeze that bowl for 18 to 24 hours, the liquid manages to keep the bowl cool enough for a twenty or thirty minute ice cream churn.

Obviously, before you throw the ice cream mixture into churn, you need to make something up, but there are loads of recipes out there, and it’s great fun.

This journalist makes ice cream usually once a week – more in the warmer months – and usually with the barest of ingredients: eggs, milk, cream, and sugar for ice cream (plus flavourings); or fruit, sugar, and a blender for sorbets.

Kambrook’s Soft Scoops Ice Cream Maker uses a smaller bowl, which results in less ice cream than some of the $80 or $100 bowl-based solutions, but makes enough for most kids to enjoy quickly. For the months of November and December, and in conjunction with the launch of “Ice Age 4” on DVD and Blu-ray, the Soft Scoops Maker comes with an extra bowl, too, so you can always have one in the freezer ready to make your kids happy.

Mmm... cake pops. *drools*

If your kids aren’t really into ice cream, there’s always cake pops, which are little balls of spongey vanilla and chocolate cake goodness that the little ones can cover in chocolate, sprinkles, icing, and go nuts with creativity on.

Released this week, the Kambrook Cake Pop Maker can make 12 cake pops in about 5 minutes, with 24 reusable sticks and a tray to show off the work.

Appliances for kids don’t generally tax the wallet too much, and both of these fit in that category, with the Soft Scoop Ice Cream Maker grabbing a recommended retail price of $44.95 and the Cake Pop Maker selling for $34.95 RRP.

Not everyone likes ice cream, but everyone likes cake.