Homemade Ice Cream – No ice cream machine needed

I’m the type that will always have room for ice cream in all season. I love that I can have small amount to satisfy my sweet tooth craving. However, I don’t have an ice cream machine and won’t be purchasing one anytime soon. But you can still make delicious homemade ice cream with a hand mixer at home. The best part you can do lots of different combinations that you can’t find in store. In this post, I made pistachio and Dalgona ice cream.

I’ve always avoided making ice cream at home because I thought it was impossible without an ice cream machine. However, I discovered that you can make ice cream with just 2 base ingredients. Previously I used just the 2 base ingredients to make ice cream. The taste….well it didn’t taste that great.

I’ve added a couple of ingredients on top of the base ingredients and it was delicious!

Why use condensed milk?

The condensed milk helps to increase the milk flavour. If you ever tried condensed milk on its own, it’s very sweet but has a strong milk flavour. This will help to enhance the creaminess of the ice cream after freezing.

Check out some of my dessert recipes!

• Chocolate dipped mango ice cream bar
• Chocolate Mochi
• Sticky rice balls (Tangyuan)

Ingredients:

Base ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup whipping/heavy cream
• 1/2 cup condensed milk
• Optional-strained Greek yogurt (remove half of the whipping cream amount and replace with yogurt)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

This should make about 1L of ice cream

I made two flavorings: pistachio and dalgona. I split the whipping cream mixture in half.

Pistachio ice cream:

• 3 tbsp pistachio butter
• 3 tbsp warm milk (40-50^oC or 104-122^oF)

Dalgona Ice cream

• 2 tbsp instant coffee (espresso powder will intensify the coffee flavour)
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp hot water

Other flavours

The most basic flavour you can do is Vanilla. You can do it in 2 ways: using vanilla extract or vanilla bean. Vanilla bean will take some prep work but it’s not overly tedious or hard. Vanilla extract you can add directly to the whipping cream and condensed milk.

If you want to do other flavours, like fruits, you can definitely do it. If you are lazy, using some store bought jam is always good. If you don’t like it too sweet, add slightly less condensed milk- about 1-2 tbsp less. (4 tbsp = 1/4 cup).

If you choose to make your own fruit flavoured ice cream, cook the fruits to render our excess moisture. Then blend half of the fruits so it combines well with the whipping cream mixture and leave the other half with some chunks for better texture.

How to make homemade ice cream

If you planning to make just plain vanilla ice cream. Here are two ways to do it. If you are using vanilla extract, you can add it with whipping cream and condensed milk. If you are using vanilla bean, you need to extract the bean and put a whole vanilla stick into the whipping cream and warm it until the whipping cream starts to form small bubbles around the outside. Put whipping/heavy cream into bowl and let it sit over night with the vanilla bean. Strain it when you are ready to use.

Combine the whipping/heavy cream with condensed milk.

Dalgona and pistachio ice cream

Once you have whipped the whipping cream to a soft peak, you can add different flavouring.

Dalgona ice cream:

1. combine equal parts of instant coffee, sugar and hot water in a cup.
2. Use a hand frother or if you are making a huge batch, a hand mixer to froth up the coffee mixture.
3. Once it’s doubled in volume, combine with the whipping cream.
4. Use a hand mixer to mix them together until it’s nice and fluffy.
5. Place into a freezer safe container (600ml) and freeze for at least 2 hours
6. When serving, let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes. Serve with some cocoa powder on top!

Pistachio ice cream:

1. Heat up the milk to be about 50^oC or 122^oF.
2. Add in the pistachio butter in.
3. Mix with a hand frother. It will take a bit before it mixes, just be patient.
4. Once the pistachio butter is fully mixed with the milk. Add into the whipping cream.
5. Use a hand mixer to mix together.
6. Place whipped pistachio ice cream into a freezer safe container (600ml). Freeze for 2 hours before serving.
7. When ready to serve, let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. Serve with some crushed pistachio.

Pro-tip

• whip the cream until soft peak, you don’t want to over whip it
• Taste the ice cream before freezing, if it is slightly sweeter than what you usually used to, then it’s good. This is because when the cream is frozen, the sweetness decrease.
• when adding flavouring, make sure to not include too much water as this will cause water crystal to form. For example, if you want to add fruits, cook them with a bit of sugar and lemon to evaporate the water, you can still leave some fruit chunks in for better texture.
• When serving, definitely let the ice cream sit at room temperature for 10 minutes to let it soften or else it will be hard for you to scoop (I keep my freezer temperature at 0^oF or -17^oC).