How to make the BEST Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you make vanilla ice cream better? ›

Drizzle your homemade ice cream with chocolate syrup, caramel sauce, or fruit sauce. Pair the vanilla ice cream with a fruit crisp or cobbler. For an impressive presentation, consider serving your ice cream in a store-bought or homemade waffle cone.

When it comes to great ice cream, cold temperatures and speed are your friends: the faster you bring your base from liquid to solid, the creamier it'll be. In a 2-quart unit, a typical batch of ice cream will take between 18 and 25 minutes to churn.

If you have ever made ice cream, you already know what goes into it, ingredients such as milk, cream, and sugar. But there is one main ingredient that you may not have thought about, probably because you can't see it—air.

The cream cheese helps create an ice cream with a denser, smoother texture. As explained by TASTE, cream cheese acts as a stabilizer in ice cream, preventing water from seeping out of the milk and cream as well as preventing the formation of ice crystals that detract from ice cream's creaminess.

Serve your ice cream with fun mix-ins for added flavor and crunch. Using interesting mix-ins and toppings is an easy way to jazz up store-bought ice cream. "I love adding diced mango or mango purée to vanilla or coconut ice cream," said Shurilla.

Fat. A great ice cream owes its smooth, creamy mouthfeel to fat, which helps keep ice crystals small. As Bauer explains, fat is also extraordinarily effective at carrying flavors, so when ice cream melts in your mouth, you are hit with the taste of your ingredients.

The kind of sugar you add also matters. High-viscosity liquid sweeteners like honey, glucose syrup, and yes, good 'ol corn syrup make for a more viscous base, which translates into chewy richness in churned ice cream.

Egg Yolks: The most traditional thickening agent, egg yolks contain natural proteins and fats that contribute to a rich and luxurious texture in custard-based ice creams. Cornstarch: Often used in non-custard ice creams, cornstarch mixed with milk helps thicken the base and create a smooth mouthfeel.

the amount and/or type of sugar used in the recipe. From what I've experienced and also understand from others involved in ice cream making, concentrated sugar depresses the freezing point of ice cream, so too little an amount of sugar in the recipe makes it too hard and too much makes it too soft.

The basic formula for vanilla ice cream is you thicken milk and cream with egg yolks, sweeten them with sugar, flavor them with vanilla, and then freeze them. The yolk will add a yellow color.

What is the difference between cheap and expensive ice cream? ›

Quicker to melt, easier to scoop if cheap

Have you ever noticed that the cheaper ice creams melt quicker and are easier to scoop, while the more expensive ones are generally more dense and slower to melt? It's all because of the air content, according to Queenie, who did a little experiment.

Sweet castoreum has been used in vanilla flavourings for 200 years – but it has a horrifying source. The substance mostly comes from a beaver's castor sacs, which are located between the pelvis and the base of the tail, The Sun reports.

The most common ones used in ice creams are guar gum, cellulose gum and carob bean gum. They are used to reduce ice crystal growth, deliver flavour cleanly, increase smoothness, body and creaminess and slow down melting. They also help hold the air bubble structure together and give the ice cream a better texture.

If you find yourself wishing you had a different flavor of ice cream but all you have is vanilla, toss that ice cream in your stand mixer with something to flavor it and beat until incorporated: fresh berries, coffee, peanut butter, chocolate sauce, crushed candy, cookies.... you choose.

A little goes a long way. Add up to three teaspoons of extract per litre of ice-cream just before freezing so the flavours aren't cooked off on the stove top. If you use essential oils or essences, Bauer suggests adding just 2 to 5 drops right as you begin churning. It's easy to overdo, too.

Use a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment to beat the ice cream on low speed. This will help incorporate some air into the ice cream and give it a lighter texture. Continue mixing for a few minutes, gradually increasing the speed to medium.