During the beginning of COVID lockdown, I started making homemade ice cream. But, like most homemade ice cream, it wasn’t that great! I LOVE ice cream, so I decided I was going to set out to make the BEST ice cream, better than you can buy in a store. Learning the science and experimenting with different recipes became my COVID hobby.

More than 400 batches later, I have achieved my goal. Friends tell me I make the best ice cream they’ve ever had. I’m able to make some of my favorite flavors that you can’t buy commercially, like real banana, and unexpectedly delicious combinations, like matcha with Grape-Nuts as a mix-in (trust me!).

Let’s get a few things out of the way first:

  1. You need an ice cream maker to make ice cream. Don’t bother with so-called “no churn” recipes. The texture won’t be good. That being said, a basic freezer-bowl style Cuisinart ice cream machine is fine, and that’s what I started out with. I ended up upgrading to a compressor-style Whynter machine, but only because I wanted to be able to make more than one batch per day and wanted a bowl with a larger capacity. The quality of the ice cream wasn’t any different.

  2. Ice cream, like baking, is based on chemistry. Each ingredient serves a purpose: Sugar lowers the freezing point, emulsifiers smooth the texture, milk solids give it “body,” fat creates the creamy mouthfeel. You can’t just throw ingredients together in any amount and expect it to come out well. You also can’t try nonsense like leaving out the sugar (unless you want a frozen ice block). If you want to learn more about the science, I highly recommend the book “Hello My Name is Ice Cream.” The website Ice Cream Science is also a great resource.

  3. Once you have a good base recipe, you can learn to adapt it to different flavors. If you’re just adding a flavor agent, like vanilla, there’s no need to adjust. But if you’re adding, for example, strawberries, you’ll need to account for the fact that strawberries add sugar, non-milk solids, and water, and adjust accordingly. That will come from experience and experimentation. There are also ice cream calculators available online that you can use.

  4. Keep it simple. Other recipes will overcomplicate things and tell you to temper the egg yolks, etc. You don’t need to do any of that. Just follow my method. You can get the stabilizers — Locust Bean Gum and Guar Gum — on Amazon, they’re not expensive, or you can use some other stabilizer (I used to swear by Cremodan 30, but they stopped making it). You can also do without any stabilizer, it will just mean the ice cream won’t keep as long in the freezer before it gets icy. I like my batches to last at least a few weeks.

**Ok, now for the base recipe: **

This is the “base” recipe all my flavors are built around. I’ll provide some of my specific recipes down below, but with a good base recipe, it provides a solid ground for experimentation. You’ll need a digital kitchen scale and a candy thermometer.

  1. For certain flavors, prepare the milk and cream a day in advance by bringing it to a boil with the flavoring items (mint leaves, coffee beans, tea, etc.) and letting it sit together in the fridge overnight. Strain out the solids before using the flavored dairy.

  2. Separate 3 large eggs (the yolks should be about 60g in weight, total). Just keep the yolks. With bird flu causing supply issues with real eggs, I’ve also used powdered egg yolks and reconstituted them with water per the directions.

  3. Prepare an ice bath by nesting a smaller bowl (large enough to hold all the ice cream mixture) in a larger bowl of ice.

  4. Add the following dry ingredients in a bowl (put the bowl on the kitchen scale), and stir them together thoroughly:

  • Table sugar: 200g
  • Skim milk powder: 60g
  • 0.8g locust bean gum (1/4 teaspoon)
  • 0.5g guar gum (1/8 teaspoon)
  • Any powdered flavorings you want to use (cinnamon, cardamom, etc.)
  • A pinch of salt
  1. Put the following wet ingredients in the saucepan and mix thoroughly:
  • Whole milk: 340g
  • Heavy whipping cream: 460g
  • Light corn syrup: 50g
  • The 3 egg yolks (use a fork or whisk to break them up)

  1. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, whisking constantly, until everything is dissolved. You can use an immersion blender if you feel like it.

  2. Put the scale away and get out a candy thermometer. Attach the candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan.

  3. Turn on the heat to medium-high and begin stirring almost constantly, with a silicone spatula so that you can keep scraping the sides/bottom, until the temperature reaches 180 degrees (10 minutes or so).BE CAREFUL NOT TO OVERCOOK OR THE EGGS WILL SCRAMBLE! The temp needs to be raised to 180 degrees to activate the locust bean gum. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, just watch until it starts to steam visibly. If not using stabilizers, you just want to pasteurize the eggs.

  4. Turn off heat and continue stirring for a few more minutes to let the mixture thicken.

  5. Pour the mixture into the container in your prepared ice bath.

  6. Add any liquid flavorings to the mix, like puréed fruit or vanilla extract.

  7. If the eggs scrambled a bit or the mixture is otherwise lumpy, hit it with an immersion blender to smooth it out. You can do this anyway if you want to ensure the smoothest texture.

  8. Let the ice cream cure in the refrigerator overnight before churning in your ice cream maker according to the instructions. After churning, it should be a soft serve-like, goopy consistency — it will not have the consistency of finished ice cream.

  9. After churning, put into your ice cream storage container as quickly as possible, and let it harden in the freezer for at least 4 hours or overnight. I like a double-hulled container that keeps the temperature more stable, like these Sumo ones. Enjoy!

Banana ice cream recipe:

Take 4 ripe bananas and break them into chunks. Put them in a sealable storage container. Heat up the milk + heavy whipping cream (increase the amounts by about 10% each), and then pour it over the bananas. Put the lid on and let it sit in your fridge for 2-3 days. Then remove the banana chunks. The extra milk and cream accounts for the amount that sticks to the bananas, but weigh it afterward and add some extra milk, if necessary, to bring the total to 800g. Then make the base recipe as usual.

Strawberry ice cream recipe:

Take 450g of fresh or frozen strawberries, and cook them on low on the stovetop for a couple of hours, until they get very jammy. The goal is to cook out as much of the water as possible. Stir in a teaspoon of Tajín.

Then make the ice cream as above, but with the following amounts:

  • 60g of corn syrup
  • 270g whole milk
  • 370g heavy whipping cream
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 190g of sugar
  • 50g skim milk powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon guar gum
  • 1/4 teaspoon locust bean gum

Once it’s done cooking, blend in the cooked-down strawberries with an immersion blender.

Ginger ice cream recipe:

Take a big hunk of ginger, maybe 200g-ish. Chop it into very small pieces (no need to peel it). Put it in a sealable container with 220g sugar, then let it sit for a day or two. The sugar will draw the moisture out of the ginger and become soupy. Boil it briefly to kill the enzyme that will curdle the milk, then add the milk. Strain out the ginger pieces. Use the remaining milk/sugar combination to make the base recipe above as usual.

Blueberry ice cream recipe:

Similar to the strawberry recipe, take 450g of fresh or frozen wild blueberries, cook them on low on the stovetop for a couple of hours, until they’re cooked-down and jammy. Then make the ice cream with the following ingredients:

  • whole milk 400g
  • heavy whipping cream 320g
  • light corn syrup 45g
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • sugar 215g
  • skim milk powder 55g
  • ¼ teaspoon of Tajin
  • 1/8 teaspoon guar gum
  • 1/4 teaspoon locust bean gum

How to add chocolate straciatelli to any flavor:

Take half of a dark chocolate bar and about a teaspoon of coconut oil, and melt them on the stove or in a microwave. As the ice cream is churning, slowly drizzle the chocolate into the bowl. The chocolate will harden as soon as it hits the ice cream and break apart into small chocolate flecks.

How to add a swirl/ribbon to any flavor:

Make your ribbon (I like fruit cooked together with corn syrup) and churn the ice cream. As you’re removing your ice cream from the machine and putting it into the storage container, layer in the ribbon. Do one layer of ice cream, one layer of ribbon, one layer of ice cream, etc. Then take a chopstick or butter knife and swirl it back and forth just slightly to spread it around.