Get a lot of lolly

Ice creams used to be terribly posh. Roman emperors would dispatch soldiers to bring snow from the mountains, and later the making of homemade vanillas required fleets of servants.

And then, in 1971, the first Mr Whippy careened around the corner, and ice cream became that inimitable mix of air, additives and vanilla essence that we know and love. Accordingly, posh ices became extra nuts on your '99.

'It doesn't have to be this way' bewails Robin Weir, champion of the easy, elegant ice cream. 'Ices are very adult. The biggest buyers are 20 to 35-year-olds. They've had it with air and fakery and have bold, adventurous palates.'

Better still, armed with the simplest of equipment and the most basic of ingredients, they can create and customise at will.

Think sexed-up Earl Grey sorbet or a gentrified champagne granita. Ice creams with a pool of Highland toffee or a muddle of 65 per cent fruit. Instantly the larder bristles with possibilities.

All ice creams are essentially just variations on a loose theme of sugar, water, milk, cream and eggs, and the Web is awash with flexible recipes. In place of cream you can use yoghurt. Instead of milk you can substitute soya. And for lighter sorbets and granites (more ice crystals than ice cream) you can swap dairy for sugar syrup and an egg white.

Recipes are easy and, contrary to popular belief, don't require an ice cream maker,' says Weir. Although it helps. Enormously. (The Gaggia Gelatiera - £299, www.gaggia.uk.com - is the Rolls Royce of ice cream makers. No work, instant wow.)

Still, in the name of research, we crack our knuckles and transfer a homemade avocado and coffee mix (inadvisable in hindsight) to a 4in-deep plastic box and convey to the freezer.

And four hours later - after running a fork through it every couple of hours - you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and our Gaggia gelatos.

The avocado was misguided. Hands up, we admit it. And our flat-mate is still masticating furiously on a peanut butter 'crunchy!' ice cream.