Are you ready for the double holiday weekend? What holiday, you ask? Don’t you know that Sunday, July 21, is National Ice Cream Day? And that July is National Ice Cream Month?

There are few things better than homemade ice cream, made with fresh ingredients like vanilla bean, and fresh blend-ins like juice peaches or fresh strawberries. But here’s the catch: Most ice creams -- or gelatos, sherbets, sorbets, what have you -- require some advance planning.

Which begs the question: Is your ice cream maker bowl in your freezer? No? Then stop reading this right now and put it in the chill chest. Go on. We’ll wait.

PHOTOS: 25 crazy cool flavors for National Ice Cream Day


A well-chilled ice cream maker freezer bowl is often a crucial prerequisite to making ice cream -- as opposed to ice cream soup -- so you need to get that started. Believe it or not, that’s often the hardest part of making homemade ice cream.

We pored through the L.A. Times Test Kitchen’s archives for some of our favorite ice cream flavors and styles. In addition to ice creams, we’ve got granitas, frozen zabagliones, popsicles, sherbets, gelatos and more, all to help you enjoy this double holiday weekend.

You’ll find that many are blissfully easy to make -- so welcome on a hot summer day -- and just require blending a few ingredients together before pouring the mixture into your chilled ice cream maker bowl.

Or you could skip that and go to your local ice cream parlor.


How are you planning to celebrate this ice cream weekend?

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