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2. Freeze in an ice cream maker, according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Serve immediately, or scoop into a storage container and freeze, tightly covered. Keeps for several weeks.

Makes 1 pint

GRAPE AMBROSIA SORBET

My paternal grandmother used to love the grape ambrosia sherbet at an ice cream shop called Farr’s in Ogden, Utah. It was a milky lavender color and studded with walnuts. My grandmother died, years passed, and one day I realized I hadn’t eaten grape ambrosia sherbet in over a decade.

Because I live 773 miles from Farr’s, I started experimenting with recipes. Some of these were outlandish, particularly an Internet recipe that involved a bottle of Welch’s grape juice and sour cream. Then I made the Concord grape sorbet from The Last Course by Claudia Fleming, the former pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern in New York City. This sorbet was tart, refreshing, and a vibrant purple. It was close, very close, to how I remembered Farr’s grape ambrosia, especially when I added walnuts.

A year later, we were passing through Ogden on a road trip and I made a detour to Farr’s. I told my kids about their great-grandmother and her love for this incredible sherbet, her baked beans, the funny things she said, like “Bob, would you like another bean?” I ordered us grape ambrosia cones and took photographs of the children with their cones. I tasted my grape ambrosia. Why, this is odd, I thought. I took another bite. It tasted exactly as I remembered. But it tasted nothing like the sorbet I’d been making. It tasted like Fanta grape soda.

1 pound Concord grapes, stemmed (don’t worry about removing every twig; you’ll strain them out later)

2 tablespoons sugar

¼ teaspoon ascorbic acid

½ cup simple syrup

½ cup walnut pieces, toasted

1. Put the grapes, sugar, and ascorbic acid in a food processor and pulse until roughly chopped. Let the mixture rest for 30 minutes.

2. Process the grapes again, this time until very finely pureed. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, pressing down on the solids.

3. Stir in the simple syrup and ¼ cup water. Cover and chill overnight.

4. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions, adding the walnut pieces when the sorbet is almost firm. Serve immediately, or scoop into a container and freeze for up to 2 weeks.

Makes a little less than 1 quart

ICE CREAM MAKERS

The days of hand-cranking ice cream in the backyard with rock salt are more fun in recollection than they were in reality. There are dozens of efficient ice cream makers on the market today, from a Cuisinart model that costs less than $50, to the break-your-back-carrying-it-from-the-car $700 Lello machine, to the $4,800 Swiss Pacojet. The primary difference is that with cheaper models you have to freeze the bowl for twelve hours before using, which requires both freezer real estate and foresight. With machines like the Lello, you can make ice cream on the spur of the moment—push a button and the engine both churns and freezes your dessert in under an hour. The downside of these premium machines is that they are expensive and they are mammoth—about the size of a microwave. (The Pacojet comes in compact sizes suitable for the countertop, but I’d sooner fly my family to Hawaii for a week than spend $4,800 on an ice cream maker.) Machines like the Lello can also be noisy. I’ve used both, and I recommend a cheap machine. With $650 you can buy a lot of premium ingredients.

MARSHMALLOW CREME

You can use this to top ice cream, or in a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. Homemade marshmallow creme is almost indistinguishable from store-bought, though there’s a foamy crackle to commercial fluff that homemade lacks. Whether that’s a positive or negative is up to you.

Make it or buy it? Make it.

Hassle: A cinch

Cost comparison: Homemade: $0.36 per cup. Kraft Jet-Puffed marshmallow creme: $2.75 per cup.

One ¼-ounce envelope unflavored gelatin (about 1 tablespoon)

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a small