It’s a hundred million degrees outside, at least it feels that way with all the humidity. I’m dying for ice cream! I have seen recipe after recipe for delicious flavors of homemade ice cream and I get so excited…I read the ingredients….the instructions aren’t too hard….and then it says “churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions”. Bummer. So I decided that it was bunk to think I couldn’t make ice cream without it. What did people do before those kitchen gadgets anyway? I’m not against owning an ice cream maker and they aren’t terribly expensive but I live in a kitchen the size of Anna’s closet in our last house, I don’t have room for another gadget. I found the solution which I outline in a step by step (super easy) tutorial below. But first things first, let’s talk about the ice cream base.
Lots of ice cream bases involve cooking something on the stove and many are made with an egg base. I plan to try a couple different options at some point but I started with a super simple recipe that doesn’t involve the stove at all. One of the nice things about a base you don’t cook, you eliminate having to chill the base before churning it and I’m all about simple processes. Here’s your line up for the ice cream base:
You’ll need heavy whipping cream, almond milk (though I’m sure regular milk would be fine too. Almond milk has 2.5 grams of fat per serving, so be sure to match the fat content), dark chocolate, salt, vanilla, sugar.
Remove the stems and pits from your cherries, don’t spend your time trying to keep beautiful cherries, they are about to be chipped up. Chop your chocolate and set it aside. You’ll add this at the end.
Combine everything except the chopped chocolate in a food processor and pulse until the cherries are finely “chipped”.
Done! You’ll end up with about 2 pints of ice cream base, for best results, “churn” the ice cream 1 pint at a time as I outline below.
As I researched how to make ice cream without an ice cream maker, I learned quite a bit. I learned that if you stick ice cream base in a container and stick it straight in the freezer, you’ll end up with rock hard non-ice cream full of ice crystals. In order to end up with that ice cream texture we all crave when it’s a bajillion degrees out, you need to introduce air into the mixture as it’s freezing. There are lots of ways to do this, you may even be familiar with a couple. Some recommend the ziploc bag method but that looked messy and not quite my style. Another site simply recommended stirring the ice cream basing every half hour as it freezes, and while effective that seemed like a lot of commitment to me. Below is a super easy, fool proof step by step guide for making delicious ice cream without fancy kitchen gadgets.
You’ll need: some room in your freezer, a large mixing bowl or stock pot (I originally thought my kitchen aid mixing bowl would be big enough but I was wrong and switched to the stock pot), a smaller mixing bowl to fit inside the stock pot, a hand mixer, some chopped ice (I just pulsed a bunch of ice a couple times in my food processor), plastic wrap, and some rock salt.
Mix your ice and rock salt in your stock pot.
Nestle a small mixing bowl containing 1 pint (2 cups) of ice cream base into the ice, try to get the ice as high around the side of the bowl as possible for all the ice cream base is surrounded by ice. Beat with your hand mixer on low for 10 minutes.
Stick the entire nested bowl/stock pot combo in the freezer and let it freeze for 45 minutes.
Remove your nested bowls from the freezer and drag a spoon across the top. It should be like pudding or yogurt, especially the top layer.
Beat with the hand mixer on low for an additional five minutes. The base will turn to a soft serve ice cream type texture.
Fold in your chocolate (don’t forget to save half of it for the other half of the mix!)
Cover the mix with a piece of plastic wrap with the plastic wrap touching the surface of the ice cream mix and put it back in the freezer for at least four hours or overnight.
When your ice cream is frozen, scoop yourself a big bowl and dig in!
Cherry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Recipe barely adapted from loveandoliveoil.com
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 1/2 cup almond milk
- 8 ounces sweet cherries (such as Rainier or Bing), pitted
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch salt
- 4 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
Directions:
Combine cream, almond milk, 6 ounces of cherries, sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until cherries are finely chopped. Add remaining cherries and pulse briefly until coarsely chopped.
To turn the base into ice cream:
Original tutorial from thekitchn.com
Ingredients
1 pint (usually a half recipe) of ice cream mix, well chilled
Equipment
Very large mixing bowl or stockpot
Small 1-quart bowl
Chopped ice
3/4 cup rock salt or kosher salt
Electric hand mixer
Instructions
1. Fill the large bowl about halfway with ice. Stir in 3/4 cup rock salt.
2. Nestle the smaller bowl in the ice. Try to get almost completely buried in the ice. Fill the smaller bowl halfway with ice cream mix (use at most 1 pint of mix).
3. Use the hand mixer to beat the mix for 10 minutes. You may find it helpful to half cover the bowl with a towel, to help prevent spattering.
After you have aerated and chilled the mix for about 10 minutes, place the entire set of nested bowls — large and small — in the freezer. Freeze for 45 minutes.
4. Remove the bowls from the freezer. Draw a spoon across the top of the ice cream mix. It’s probably the consistency of loose pudding, especially on top.
5. Mix again with the hand mixer for 5 minutes. At this point the mixture should be the texture of soft-serve ice cream.
6. Remove the small bowl from the large bowl, and cover the top with plastic wrap touching the surface of the ice cream. Freeze for an additional two hours, or overnight, before serving.
This sounds amazing, and you don’t have an ice cream maker taking up space – an added benefit!
I think so! I super excited to be able to do this without another gadget in my kitchen!
I love making ice cream! I’m like you, I have no ice cream maker either. But the end result is all the more rewarding! Great recipe.
This is my favorite flavor of ice cream! Thanks for posting!
It’s my husband’s too! Glad you like it!
Definitely the thing to make when it’s bajillion degrees out!
I’m going to try it!
Definitely adding this to my to do list!