One of the joys of a fruit garden - and one of the most effective solutions to a fruit glut - is making ice-creams and sorbets. They always have been (and, I suspect, always will be) one of my favourite things in the world. As a die-hard enthusiast of the iced dessert, I have made and eaten a lot of them over the years, and although these days I rarely measure ingredients precisely or follow written recipes I have come to operate according to a set of reliable guidelines that serve me well. Here, then, are a few personal notes on the general business of making ices:

1. Ice-cream machines are very useful indeed. Top-of-the-range ones can be expensive but I wouldn't be without mine. If you like ice-cream, they will enable you to make stuff that is better than anything you can buy in the shops. The hard graft of making ice-cream without a machine (taking it out of the freezer several times to whisk the partially frozen mixture by hand) is a pretty major disincentive.

2. Fruit ice-creams have a better flavour and texture if made with a custard or egg mousse base rather than just fruit purée mixed with double cream (my Cheaty Peach Ice-cream is the exception that proves this rule). The mousse base, as described in Vanilla Ice-cream below, is my preferred option.

3. You need to bear in mind that flavours are muted at low temperatures. Mixes for sorbets and ice-creams should therefore, in their unfrozen state, taste a little too sweet, a little too sharp, and a little too fruity (if that's possible). By the same token, chocolate ice-creams should be very chocolatey and coffee ones very coffeey. Once you have appreciated this principle, it becomes easy to improvise ice-creams and sorbets with almost any flavour that comes to hand.

4. Bear in mind that some fruits are much stronger flavoured than others. Blackcurrants, for example, are extremely intense, and only a little blackcurrant purée is needed to transform a mousse and cream mixture into strongly flavoured ice-cream. With strawberries, by contrast, much more purée will be needed.

5. Avoid metal spoons, sieves and bowls when using very acidic fruits such as raspberries and redcurrants. They can discolour the fruit and spoil the flavour.

6. Fruits that are unpalatable raw, such as blackcurrants, gooseberries, rhubarb, damsons and other sour plums, will need to be cooked before being made into ice-cream. Cool and sieve the cooked fruit compote before adding it to the mousse base for ice-cream or sweetening it for a sorbet.

Icing sugar is a very useful ingredient for instantly adjusting the sweetness of your mix. Lemon juice is equally handy for adjusting the acidity.

If you don't have a machine, an easy way to make sorbets is to freeze your sweetened fruit pulp in a tray until solid, then scratch it up into frosty shards with a strong fork just before serving. This is what Italians call a granita. The texture is a little crunchier than a sorbet, but still wonderful.

These guidelines should help the budding ice enthusiast to improvise all kinds of delights. Meanwhile, here are my top tried and trusted ices, with accurate quantities for infallible reproduction.

Best Ever Vanilla Ice-cream

Made with the best eggs, the best cream and a real vanilla pod, this should be one of the best vanilla ice-creams you'll ever taste. I like it on its own, or with just a few fresh raspberries.

Without the vanilla, this is the mousse base I use for most of my fruit ice-creams.

Makes 1 litre

500ml double cream
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways
100g caster sugar
150ml water
4 large egg yolks

Scald the cream (i. e. bring it almost to boiling point, then remove from the heat) and add the vanilla pod. Leave to infuse until the cream is completely cool. Scrape out the tiny seeds from the pod and leave them in the cream.

Over a low heat, dissolve the sugar in the water, then turn up the heat and boil rapidly to get a light syrup (it's ready when a little dropped on to a cold plate forms a thread when stretched between finger and thumb). Leave the syrup to cool for just a minute. Place the egg yolks in a basin and begin whisking (ideally with an electric whisk), trickling in the hot syrup as you go. Continue whisking until the mixture is thick and mousse-like, then whisk in the cream. Pour the mixture into an ice-cream machine and churn until frozen.

Gooseberry and Elderflower Ice-cream

Makes about 1.5 litres

1kg gooseberries
4-5 elderflower heads
about 125g icing sugar
1 quantity of Vanilla Ice-cream mixture (see above), made without the vanilla pod (there is no need to scald the cream)

Gently stew the gooseberries and elderflower heads with a couple of tablespoons of water until soft and pulpy. Rub them through a nylon sieve to remove the elderflower bits and gooseberry skin and pips. Stir the icing sugar into the resulting purée.

Stir the sweetened gooseberry purée into the ice-cream mix until thoroughly blended. Check for sweetness, adding a little more icing sugar if it is very tart, then freeze in your ice-cream machine. Serve with shortbread fingers

Blackcurrant Double-ripple Ice-cream

Blackcurrants are so intensely flavoured that you don't need much of their purée to flavour an ice-cream. This recipe keeps the purée very tart and sharp. Half of it is used to flavour a classic, custard-based ice-cream, while the other half makes ripples of very intense, concentrated fruit purée. It's a tantalising, sherbety, sweet-and-sour effect.

Makes about 1.5 litres

600g blackcurrants
175g caster sugar
250ml whole milk
500ml double cream
4 egg yolks

Place the blackcurrants in a saucepan with a dribble of water to get them started and 50g of the caster sugar. Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes, until the blackcurrants are completely soft and the juices have run. Rub the mixture through a sieve into a bowl and chill.

Put the milk and half the cream in a pan and scald until almost boiling. Mix the egg yolks with the remaining caster sugar, then pour the hot milk and cream on to them, whisking all the time. Return this custard to the pan and stir constantly over a very gentle heat until it starts to thicken. Take off the heat and keep stirring as it cools and thickens further.

Combine the custard with half the blackcurrant purée, mixing thoroughly. Lightly whip the remaining double cream and fold it in. Taste the mixture and add more sugar if you think it needs it.

Now either pour the mixture into an ice-cream machine and churn until nearly frozen or freeze-churn the old-fashioned way by putting the mixing bowl in the freezer and removing every hour or so to whisk up and emulsify the half-frozen mixture. Whichever route you choose, when the ice-cream is thick enough to hold its shape but soft enough to work a little, spread it in a large mixing basin and make several channels, grooves and holes in it. Into these, drizzle little pools of the remaining blackcurrant purée. Cut and turn the mixture a few times to spread these ripples around, but don't overdo it, or they'll get too mixed up with the ice-cream. The aim is to create a contrast of both colour and taste.

Pack into tubs and freeze. Leave at room temperature for a good half an hour before serving. Serve with shortbread or other sweet biscuits.

Cheaty Peach Ice-cream

I use fresh seasonal fruit for all my ice-creams - except this one! It's the easiest ice-cream you'll ever make.

Makes about 1 litre

1 large (800g) tin of peaches in syrup
500ml double cream

Empty the contents of the can into a liquidiser and blend until smooth. Stir in the cream. Pour into your ice-cream machine and churn until frozen.

Italian-style Strawberry Water-ice (or Granita)

Sweet, tart and fruity, this is a real gelato, like the kind you get in the best Italian ice-cream parlours. Ideally it should be made in an ice-cream machine. However, if you don't have one, make a granita by freezing your sweetened fruit pulp solid in a tray and then scratching it up with a strong fork just before serving.

Makes about 1 litre

1kg strawberries
100ml lemon juice (about 2 large lemons)
about 250g icing sugar

Crush the strawberries and rub them through a nylon sieve to extract the seeds. Stir in the lemon juice, then whisk in the icing sugar to taste; the mix should be a little too sweet and a little too sharp, to allow for the fact that both tastes will be muted slightly when it is frozen. Pour into your ice-cream machine and churn until frozen. Or, to make a granita, pour the purée into a tray or large Tupperware tub, ideally so it is no deeper than about 4cm, so it will freeze quickly. Put in the freezer until solid. Defrost for about half an hour before serving, then use a robust fork to scrape up the surface of the frozen fruit, piling the frosty shards into glasses. Serve quickly, before it has time to melt.

Variation: Snow-capped granite

Granitas are excellent served with a spoonful of double cream poured over the top - especially if the cream is ever so slightly sweetened with a little icing sugar. The granita must be cold enough to freeze the cream into a solid 'snow cap'.

Raspberry and Redcurrant Sorbet

A fantastically tart and refreshing combination, which I like to serve alongside the strawberry ice, above. Moving from one to the other, then back again, trying to work out which of the two is more delicious, is my idea of sorbet heaven.

Makes about 1 litre

500g raspberries
500g redcurrants
250g icing sugar

Crush the fruit and rub it through a nylon sieve to extract the seeds. Stir the icing sugar into the fruit purée. Pour it into your ice-cream machine and churn until frozen (or make granita style, as described above).

Apple Sorbet with Calvados

Apples are normally associated with warm, wintry puddings, but we shouldn't forget their amazing ability to refresh as well as comfort. In early October, when most of the apples are still fairly tart and, with a bit of luck, there's still the odd sunny day to enjoy, I like to make an incredibly simple apple sorbet with freshly pressed apple juice. The old varieties of eating apple, such as Ashmead's Kernel, James Grieve, Egremont Russet and Orleans Reinette, give the best, most complex flavour. They can be combined with Bramley or early, underripe Cox's for added tartness. You can, at a pinch, use bottled juice, but only of a very high quality. Locally produced juice from good English apple varieties is often found at farm shops and farmer's markets. Avoid juices made from concentrate.

Makes about 1 litre

up to 2kg apples (enough to give a good litre of juice)
up to 50g icing sugar
a squeeze of lemon juice
Calvados, to serve

Juice the apples. A centrifugal juice extractor is a useful item here, but you can make fresh juice by finely grating the apples, then squeezing them in a strong cotton cloth.

Whisk the icing sugar into the apple juice until you get the right balance of sweetness and acidity. A squeeze of lemon juice can be used to restore the balance of acidity, especially if using a very sweet dessert variety (ripe Egremont Russets, for example).

Pour the juice into your ice-cream machine and churn until frozen (or make granita style, as described above). Either serve straight away or pack into tubs and freeze - in which case, leave for 1/2-1 hour at room temperature before serving. Serve in glasses, with 2 teaspoons of Calvados drizzled over each serving.