6 Tips to Make Great Homemade Ice Cream + Recipe

Here are some simple tips and tricks to help you make homemade ice cream that’s tastier and healthier than any you’ve made before. With wholesome ingredients (including our secret ingredient), and the easiest ice cream maker on the planet, you really can make healthy homemade ice cream! We’ve included some advice on what makes homemade ice cream the best it can be. 
This recipe has been updated since its original publication in 2013 – eat hearty!

More Homemade Treats to Try Later:

Homemade Marshmallows

Naturally Dyed Blue Mint Ice Cream

Rose Petal Ice Cream

What Are the Ingredients of Healthy Homemade Ice Cream?

Making homemade ice cream is a great opportunity to de-junk a favorite treat. Have you ever read the back of a box of ice cream? Uh, please do.

Even if you don’t believe The Healthy Home Economist when she tells you that there’s anti-freeze in your ice cream, it would still be nice to be able to pronounce all the words on the box. Besides, why ingest corn syrup and natural flavors if you don’t have to?

Here are a few healthier items to use right away to make any ice cream recipe healthier:

• Use rich, fresh milk (or pasteurized if you prefer), or any alternative milk of your choice sourced from a place you trust. 
• Switch out the typical corn syrup and Sorbitol in commercial ice creams for better sweeteners. Try raw sugar, succanat, raw honey, or maple syrup.

The basic ingredients for our healthy homemade ice cream are:

1. Fresh Milk
2. Fresh Cream (not whipping cream)
3. Organic Gelatin (optional, but highly recommended – our secret ingredient!)
4. Sweetener of Choice

We use fresh, raw milk for our ice cream, but you can also use pasteurized. You can also use nut or coconut milk, just be sure it has as much fat as possible.

What Are the Steps to Making Homemade Ice Cream?

Also, include your kids or grand-kids in this homemade ice cream making process. It’s super simple to do and will give you an opportunity to talk to your kids about healthy treats and why we take time to make them. The more involved they are in the process of making this healthy ice cream, the more inclined they’ll be to eat it and brag about it to their friends.

Homemade Ice Cream Equipment

You really don’t need any fancy equipment to make homemade ice cream. All you need are the ingredients, a bowl, and a whisk. A freezer is a must, too.

You can learn how to make ice cream without an ice cream maker here:

• Make Ice Cream in a Bag  from One Little Project.
• How to Make Ice Cream Without a Machine from Handle the Heat.

Ice Cream Makers

There are several kinds of ice cream makers designed for home use. There’s the old-fashioned electric with a cannister insert.

1. These ice cream makers create great ice cream and they’re easy to use.
2. The units usually come with a recipe book and all those recipes can be fun to try.
3. The downside of these models is that they require you use ice and rock salt to freeze the ice cream.
4. I never have ice on hand (no room in my freezer) and I only ever kept rock salt to make ice cream.

So, I decided to try a Cuisinart counter-top ice cream freezer.

The unit comes with its own freezer bowls that take care of freezing the ice cream. These counter-top models are efficient, quick, and worth every penny. Here are a few more things to know about the counter-top ice cream maker:

1. You do need to have room in your freezer for the bowl (in which the ice cream mixture is placed and where it turns into ice cream).
2. It takes 24ish  hours to freeze the bowl completely.
3. You can’t store the ice cream in the bowl; it must be removed once frozen or it will continue to freeze to the side of the bowl.
4. For my family of seven, we needed to purchase an extra bowl to make enough ice cream for everyone.

How to Use a Counter-Top Ice Cream Maker

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to use a counter-top ice cream freezer. These are a bit different from the ice cream makers of my youth, but certainly not complicated.

Looking at the picture below to orient yourself, here are the basic steps of using a counter-top ice cream maker:

1. The day before you need to make ice cream, place the unit’s freezer bowl into the freezer to chill. If you have room, you can simply leave it in your freezer so that it’s always ready.
2. Mix up the ice cream base (see the recipe in this article).
3. Plug in the base of the unit on a level surface and insert the frozen bowl.
4. Pour the ice cream base into the frozen bowl and insert the paddle.
5. Place the lid on top and switch the unit to on.

The bowl will turn and the paddle will act as an agitator to mix the base and freeze it evenly into ice cream. This process can take anywhere from 20-60 minutes depending on how cold your bowl is, your ambient temperature, and your fat and sugar content.

What is a Good Recipe for Homemade Ice Cream?

We use the homemade ice cream recipe below as a base for all our ice cream recipes. We add in various items like fruit, cocoa, peanut butter, etc., to make each batch a new treat. However, to begin with, this is a healthy, high quality homemade ice cream recipe.

Homemade Ice Cream

Homestead Lady Tessa Zundel

Use this simple fresh milk ice cream recipe for your countertop ice cream maker. Pick which healthy sugar you'd like and add the special ingredient!

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 5 minutes mins

Course Healthy Recipes

Cuisine Dessert

Servings 6 Servings

Equipment

• Countertop 2-quart Ice Cream Maker

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 3 Cups Whole Fresh Milk
• 1 Cup Cream Not Whipping Cream
• 1 Tbsp. Organic Gelatin Optional but Recommended
• 1/2 - 3/4 Cup Sugar
• Flavor or Additive – e.g. 1/2 cup of cocoa or 1 tablespoon of vanilla, optional**
• Other Additives - e.g. Mini choclate chips, sprinkles, nuts, candies, etc.

Instructions

 

• Warm 3 cups milk, 1 cup cream, and 1 Tbsp. of gelatin together in a saucepan until the gelatin is dissolved. Whisk the mixture a bit to incorporate the gelatin. You do not need to heat the milk very high. We use fresh milk to make our ice cream, so we watch the temperature closely. Usually around 100F/38C is enough to dissolve the gelatin.
• Add 1/2 - 3/4 cups of sugar to warm milk mixture and stir to dissolve. Whisk in flavor additives like 1/2 cup of cocoa powder or 1 Tbsp. of vanilla, if using.
• Pour the mixture into the previously frozen bowl that fits into the unit. I use a 2 quart bowl. If yours is smaller, only use half this recipe amount and freeze the rest later.
• Put the paddle inside the bowl, place the lid on top and turn the unit to on. Wait about twenty minutes, or until you hear the unit start to slow down its rotations. You'll be able to see through the top to determine if the ice cream is frozen to your satisfaction. Put in other additives, if you have them and allow them to mix in for a few minutes.
• Remove the ice cream immediately from the bowl or you'll have a layer of ice cream freeze hard to the side of the bowl. Use a soft spatula so you don't scrape the sides of your bowl. Serve immediately.
• If you need to store your ice cream, line a bread pan with parchment paper and empty your ice cream bowl into it. Freeze the ice cream in the pan. Pull the parchment paper out with your frozen ice cream inside, wrap up and put into a freezer bag or suitable container. I have some glass containers I use when I store my ice cream. Honestly, we eat it up right away most of the time.
• Remove the ice cream from the freezer 30-60 minutes before you need to eat it so it can start to soften. This is very dependant on how hard it has frozen.

Notes

*Choose honey, succanat (which will give a caramel flavor to your ice cream), raw sugar, rice syrup, monk fruit sugar, or your favorite sweetener to give flavor to your ice cream. 

Be sure any granulated sugar has been mixed long enough to dissolve. Lower-carb sugar produce a softer set, FYI.

**You can also add bits of fruit, chocolate shavings, and more as additives. Put these in a few minutes before the freeze cycle is complete to avoid them becoming too hard to eat.

See more notes below in post.

Keyword healthy treats, Ice Cream

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

If You’re Reducing Sugar in Homemade Ice Cream

If you’re reducing the sugar in your homemade ice cream, the more firm your ice cream will be once its frozen. To counteract this, be sure to add lots of healthy fat to your ice cream base.

• Use whole milk and even extra cream. 
• Be sure to add one tablespoon of organic beef gelatin. The gelatin will provide you with a smooth, creamy texture.
• You can also add tempered egg yolks.

Tips on Using the Freezer Bowl in the Counter-Top Model

Like I said, you have to place the bowl to the unit in your freezer so make sure you have freezer space for that – it’s a 2 qt., 7 inch bowl.

Also:

• You can’t use the same bowl twice in a row. The best you’ll get the second time around is milkshake consistency.
• Remember to completely re-freeze the bowl to make another batch. That’s why we have two bowls and always freeze both ahead of when we’ll need to make homemade ice cream.
• Each bowl will need about 24 hours, sometimes longer.

If you have more than four people for whom you’re making ice cream, I recommend getting an extra bowl because it only makes two quarts tops.

More Ice Cream Recipe Notes

There are six basic secrets to quality homemade ice cream.

1. The more fat the better for flavor and proper set.
2. Enough sugar to freeze without going rock hard.
3. An emulsifier to keep it smooth.
4. Don’t add too much air.
5. Don’t overfill your ice cream maker bowl.
6. Cool it as quickly as possible.

Fat: If you have a high percentage of cream, you will have good ice cream.

Sugar: Sugar lowers the freezing point of the water in the ice cream, so adding a little more will help it set softer. If you don’t want to add more sugar and you don’t mind alcohol, add a few tablespoons of bourbon (alcohol is an anti-freeze).

Emulsifier: Bulk up your ice cream and help it blend together by adding an emulsifier. We use organic beef gelatin, but you can also use tempered egg yolks. 

Air: Some air introduced in the mixing process is fine, but lots of air will produce a harder final freeze.

Just Enough: In general, 4 cups of liquid requires a 2-quart or larger freezer bowl. If your bowl is smaller, churn the ice cream in two batches, or cut the batch in half. It takes longer to churn an over-full bowl and overmixing can lead to weird texture. (The cream in the recipe starts to turn to butter and it makes the ice cream weirdly oily.)

Cool Quickly: Freeze your ice cream as quickly as possible. Be sure the bowl of your countertop ice cream maker is pre-frozen. The quicker you make the change from liquid to solid, the smoother the ice cream will be. An electric ice cream maker can do this within a half hour.

Using Alternative Ingredients

When using alternatives to dairy, just keep the fat rule in mind. Use the highest fat subsitution you can find and be willing to experience different textures. 

Remember, the flavor will still be delicious! Ice cream is simply cream, sugar, and flavoring. Regardless of texture, your experimental ice creams will still taste amazing. And you’ll get used to the differences over time and find methods that work best for you.

Be advised that lower-carb sugars like erythritol are a little different from sugar cane sugars. When I make homemade ice cream with erythritol, I skip the countertop ice cream maker and put them into the freezer in a parchment paper lined pan. It takesovernight to freeze, but the texture is almost as good and the flavor is still great.

Read and experiment with a lot of different lower-carb, alternative milk recipes before you settle on one you like best. Everyone is giving you their best variation, but you may find that you and your family like one much better than another.

You CAN make ice cream with “weird” milks and sugars, it will simply be a little different from what you might be used to – which is fine!

• Just remember to take the ice cream out 30-60 minutes before you want to eat it, regardless of what kind of sugar you use, so that it can soften.

Favorite Flavors of Homemade Ice Cream?

What are our favorite flavors? That’s a very relative question. I am really not respecter of ice creams; I love them all. Here’s a list of ice cream combinations that will delight you!

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