The New York Times - Cup or cone?

There are some things that begin to feel like tradition the very first time you do them. For our family, it was coming home from picking strawberries the first week of June last year and promptly making a batch of David Lebovitz’s strawberry sour cream ice cream. The berries lent fresh, candy-like sweetness while the sour cream brought subtle acidity and loft. Scoop after scoop, we marveled.

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That was our first summer owning Wirecutter’s favorite ice cream maker. And the pairing of that little machine with berry-picking season is something our family has been looking forward to ever since the first 70-degree day this spring.

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It’s especially sweet that this all coincided with my 10-year-old’s newfound obsession with making the ice cream himself. The thing about watching a kid do it is that you learn what happens if you don’t aim for perfection: We didn’t freeze our tools; sometimes we skipped ice baths; and many times, we ate the soft-serve-like ice cream straight out of the Cuisinart’s bowl because we simply couldn’t wait for it to harden overnight.

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Did we get some ice crystals here and there? Sure. Was it all still incredibly delicious? Absolutely. I came to realize that while making ice cream at home can seem like an expensive, laborious hobby, it’s actually not. If a 10-year-old with a $70 machine and some fresh berries can churn out crowd-pleasing ice cream, I’m confident you can too.

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And for those of you who still firmly believe that having to make your own ice cream will ruin your chill (I get it), we’ve got you covered: Below, we’ll walk you through some of our favorite store-bought frozen delights. Whether you’re churning at home or swinging by the store, here’s to making this the summer of ice cream.

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The best at-home ice cream maker (isn’t the Ninja Creami)→

There’s something fantastic about an old-school-style ice cream sandwich—the kind made from vanilla ice cream and two chocolate wafers that stick to your fingers. But after taste-testing a dozen contenders, we can say for sure: Not all ice cream sandwiches are created (or taste) equal.

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Our favorite old-school style sammies→