I Miss the Ice Cream I Remember From Childhood, So I Started Making My Own
I am a lifelong ice cream fanatic. Some of my favorite childhood memories involve eating ice cream with my family, and to this day, it is one of my favorite treats.
But ice cream today isn’t quite the same as I remember it. Pick up a carton at the grocery store and you may find an ingredient list filled with artificial flavors and colors, gums, emulsifiers, fillers, and other additives that aren’t what I have in mind when I think about a nostalgic banana spit.
Over the years, I’ve tried plenty of diets and approaches to eating. Where I’ve ultimately landed is pretty simple: I try to eat real food made with straightforward ingredients, and I make as much as I reasonably can from scratch using the best ingredients I can find and afford.
Of course, you can still buy ice cream made with higher-quality, simpler ingredients. The problem is that some of those pints now cost $9 or $10 each.
So last year, after coming across a ridiculously simple four-ingredient ice cream recipe online, I decided to start making my own.
Does it contain sugar? Absolutely. Is ice cream a health food? No. But I can choose exactly what goes into it, the ingredient list is remarkably short, and most importantly, it tastes delicious.
And you don’t need an ice cream maker, special equipment, or an afternoon in the kitchen to make it.
How To Make Easy 4-Ingredient No-Churn Vanilla Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 1 pint heavy cream (I like to add an extra 30–60 mL to cut the sweetness a little, but it’s not necessary)
- 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 2–3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
Directions
Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Add the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, and salt, then continue whipping for another 1–2 minutes, until well blended and soft peaks form again.
For plain vanilla ice cream, use a spatula to gently fold the mixture a few times before freezing. I’ve found that this helps remove some of the larger air bubbles and gives the finished ice cream a smoother, creamier texture.
This is also the point when you can customize it. Fold in cocoa powder for chocolate ice cream (higher quality cocoa is worth the price here), or add chocolate chips, crushed cookies, candy, fruit, or whatever other mix-ins sound good.
Transfer the mixture to a freezer-safe container, cover, and freeze until firm.
That’s it. No ice cream maker and no complicated process.
Even Organic Heavy Cream Isn’t Always Just Cream
One thing that surprised me when I started paying closer attention to ingredients was how difficult it can be to find heavy cream without added gums or stabilizers.
Even many organic options I’ve found contain ingredients such as gellan gum, including nearly every option I’ve come across, even at Whole Foods. So far, Kalona SuperNatural Organic Whipping Cream is one of the few store-bought options I’ve found without them.
If you have access to fresh cream from a local farm, that’s another option worth exploring. But I also don’t think you need to abandon homemade ice cream because the cream available at your grocery store contains a stabilizer.
Even if you use conventional or organic heavy cream with an added gum, you’re still making ice cream at home with a remarkably short ingredient list. You know exactly what you’ve put into it, and for me, the finished result is still far better than most of what I’ve been buying at the grocery store. And it tastes more like the ice cream I remember from my childhood.
What Does It Cost to Make Homemade Ice Cream?
At current Aldi prices, a 32-ounce carton of Friendly Farms Heavy Whipping Cream costs $5.05. Since this recipe uses 16 ounces, or half the carton, the cream costs about $2.53 per batch. Add a $2.15 can of Baker’s Corner Sweetened Condensed Milk, and the two main ingredients come to approximately $4.68 per batch.
For organic ingredients, I prefer Whole Foods, where a 24-ounce bottle of Kalona SuperNatural Organic Whipping Cream costs $9.99. Since the recipe uses 16 ounces, the cream costs about $6.66 per batch. Add a $3.49 can of 365 Organic Sweetened Condensed Milk, and the two main ingredients come to approximately $10.15 per batch.
I’m not including vanilla and salt in those totals since I consider both pantry staples and only use a small amount of each. Of course, your total will vary depending on the brands you buy and prices where you live.
In our house, one batch typically yields about 10 to 12 servings, compared with roughly 4 servings in a pint of ice cream. That works out to approximately 39 to 47 cents per serving with the Aldi ingredients, or about 85 cents to $1.02 per serving with the organic ingredients from Whole Foods.
Put another way, one homemade batch gives us roughly 2.5 to 3 pints’ worth of servings. Even with the more expensive organic ingredients, I’m getting considerably more ice cream for roughly what I might spend on a single $9-$10 premium pint. With the budget-friendly Aldi ingredients, the savings are even more significant.
I Tried Making Ice Cream With Honey, Too
Because I’m always experimenting, I also tried making my own sweetened condensed milk with honey to see if I could use it in this recipe.
I really wanted this experiment to work. Unfortunately, it didn’t.
My husband described the finished ice cream as having a slightly bitter taste, while I thought it tasted almost sour. Either way, neither of us was particularly excited to eat another bowl.
That’s not to say I’ve given up on making my own sweetened condensed milk. The next time I experiment with it, I plan to use maple syrup instead of honey to see if that produces a better flavor.
When I give it a try, I’ll report back.
For now, though, I’m sticking with the four-ingredient version. It’s easy, inexpensive compared with buying premium pints, endlessly customizable, and satisfies my ice cream cravings without requiring another appliance in my kitchen.
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