Vanilla Ice Cream

Making vanilla ice cream from scratch couldn’t be easier! This recipe makes a litre of smooth & creamy ice cream speckled with vanilla seeds.

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Vanilla is one of the most popular ice cream flavours & for good reason. Made correctly & with the proper ingredients, it’s hard to beat! It’s also an incredibly versatile flavour. Serve it on apple pie, add a scoop to something chocolatey or eat it on its’ own. The possibilities are endless!

If you’ve just got an ice cream machine, this is the perfect recipe to start off with! It’s incredibly creamy, super simple to make and easy to scoop. Once you’ve got vanilla ice cream nailed, the flavours that you can make are practically limitless! We’re talking stracciatella, raspberry ripple, tiramisu, apple crumble, treacle tart, French toast & so much more…

For more homemade ice creams, check out our ever growing collection of ice cream recipes! If there’s a flavour that you’d like to see on the blog, leave us a comment at the bottom of this page!

The Ice Cream Base

All ice creams start with a base. We’re using an egg custard for this recipe as I find that this produces ice creams that are rich, super smooth & easy to scoop. As appose to a Philadelphia style ice cream base which is made without eggs & has a lighter, fluffier texture but isn’t as rich.

When it comes to flavouring the custard, we only need to use half a vanilla pod (or two teaspoons of vanilla paste). High quality vanilla is expensive but goes a long way, so we only need to use a little.

Make sure to use whole milk & double cream for this recipe as these contain higher amounts of fat compared to skimmed milk or single cream. The right amount of fat adds richness & also stops ice cream from setting too hard, making it easier to scoop. If your in the USA, you’ll need to use full fat milk & heavy cream.

How To Make Vanilla Ice Cream

Making ice cream can be broken down into 4 steps. These are;

Step 1 – Making The Custard

The first step is to make the base. To do this we make an egg custard with the following ingredients.

• Whole Milk
• Double Cream
• Caster Sugar
• Egg Yolks
• Skimmed Milk Powder
• Glucose Syrup
• Vanilla – Either half a pod or 2 teaspoons of vanilla paste
• Maldon Salt

The exact quantities of each ingredient has been calculated to make the a homemade ice cream that’s creamy, smooth & easy to scoop. There’s a lot of science behind this but we’ll leave that for another time. I use this ice cream calculator when developing my recipes.

How To Make A Vanilla Custard Ice Cream Base

1. Warm Milk
   Place whole milk into a saucepan with caster sugar, vanilla, glucose syrup, skimmed milk powder & sea salt. Whisk to combine then set over a low heat & leave to get steaming hot (but not boiling!). This will only take a couple of minutes.
2. Whisk Egg Yolk & Sugar
   Whilst the milk is heating up, place egg yolks & caster sugar into a large mixing bowl then whisk to combine.
3. Temper Yolks
   Once the milk is steaming hot, we pour half of it into the yolks, whisking constantly as we do so. This is called tempering the yolks & means that the eggs won’t scramble when we add them to the rest of the milk.
4. Cook Custard
   Next, we pour the tempered yolks into the pan of milk then cook the custard, stirring constantly until it reaches a temperature of 82°c/180°f. At which point, the custard will be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
5. Stir In Double Cream
   Once cooked, we take the custard off the heat then stir in double cream.
6. Blend & Pass
   The final step is to give the custard a quick blend with a stick blender then pass it into a container, through a sieve. To prevent a skin forming as the custard cools down, it’s best to press a piece of baking parchment onto the surface

Step 2 – Chill Overnight

After we’ve made the custard base, we need to leave it in the fridge overnight. This allows the flavour to develop, improving the final, churned ice cream.

Step 3 – Churning

The next day we use an ice cream machine to churn our custard base until it reaches the consistency of soft serve. If you take the temperature of the churned ice cream with a food probe, it should be around -5°c/23°f.

Step 4 – Set In The Freezer

Once churned, we transfer the ice cream to a container then let it set in the freezer for at least 4 hours before scooping. To avoid making the ice cream set too hard, I like to set my freezer to its’ lowest setting which tends to be around 18°c/-0.4°f.

Homemade Ice Cream Tips & Tricks

• Chill your custard overnight for a better flavour & texture. This is called aging the base & also ensures that the custard is completely cold before churning, which speeds up the churning process which makes the ice cream smoother.
• Dip your scoop in hot water for easier scooping!
• Set your freezer to 18°c/-0.4°f for the best set. This makes the ice cream a lot easier to scoop as well.
• For the best flavour, use a high quality vanilla. A little goes a long way! I use half a vanilla pod for 1 litre of ice cream.

Frequently Asked Questions

Equipment Used

Please note that these are affiliate links & I may make a small commission if you make a purchase using these links, at no extra cost to you. For more information, click here.

Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Review

• Ice Cream Machine
• Digital Food Probe
• The Ice Cream Tubs That I Use
• Jug Blender
• Stand Mixer
• Ice Cream Scoop

More Dessert Recipes To Try!

• French Toast Ice Cream
• Small Batch Sticky Toffee Pudding
• Amaretto Tiramisu
• Raspberry Ripple Stracciatella
• Halva Ice Cream
• Pear Tarte Tatin
• White Chocolate & Hazelnut Panna Cottas

Watch How To Make This Recipe

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