Sweet Cream Ice Cream

The base for almost any egg-based ice cream, sweet cream ice cream is made with just cream, milk, sugar, and egg yolks. Add anything you'd like! It's the base recipe most churned ice creams work from, but equally good plain as with additions like chocolate or sprinkles.

Use your basic ice cream recipe as a jumping-off point for recipes like lemon meringue ice cream and birthday cake ice cream. If you don't have an ice cream maker, try no-churn cookies and cream ice cream.

Ingredients

Since you're using just 4 ingredients here, choose good quality milk and cream. They're the main flavour points!

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Milk: choose whole milk, not skim or 2%.
• Cream: this should be heavy or whipping cream, around 35-40% fat. You can use double cream (46%) for a richer ice cream.
• Sugar: you can use plain white sugar. Raw sugar, as pictured, adds a slight caramel flavour that's very pleasant and gives just a bit more depth to the ice cream if you're making it without any add-ins.
• Egg yolks: very orange egg yolks, like those pictured, will make for a more yellow ice cream. Lighter yolks will mean you end up with a paler, almost white ice cream (it won't affect the taste).

Method

Step 1: add the egg yolks and sugar to a large heat-safe mixing bowl.

Step 2: beat until smooth, light, and fluffy.

Step 3: heat the milk and cream, then slowly add to the egg mixture, whisking constantly.

Step 4: return the mixture to a pot and heat, stirring, until thickened.

Step 5: cool fully before churning in an ice cream maker.

Step 6: transfer to the freezer and serve frozen.

Top Tips

• Do a wooden spoon test: an easy way to tell if your ice cream custard is thickened is to test with a wooden spoon. Give it a stir, then see if you can run a finger through the mixture coating the back of the spoon. If it coats the spoon and your finger leaves a distinct line, it's ready.
• Use it as a starting point: sweet cream ice cream tastes like frozen sweetened cream. It doesn't have any magical flavour that enters once it's frozen, so if you want something more than that, be sure to add something like berries or vanilla (see below).
• Chill fully: for the ice cream to churn properly, the custard needs to be very cold before starting. After it's cooked, let it cool to room temperature before refrigerating for at minimum 4 hours, but more like overnight.

Recipe Notes

If you have a standing mixer, you can use the whisk attachment for this whole process, including mixing the milk into the egg mixture. Otherwise it works better to switch over to a whisk when adding the milk, because an electric hand mixer can cause some splatter.

No ice cream maker? You have a couple options. Freeze the cooked ice cream mixture in ice cube trays, then blend in a powerful high-speed blender after freezing (and freeze again in a sealed container like normal ice cream). Or turn it into popsicles by freezing the cooked custard in moulds - they're great dipped in chocolate!

Mix-Ins

These should all be added once the ice cream is finished churning, but before placing into the freezer. Try one or any combination of the mix-ins listed to make your own custom ice cream flavour.

Our favourites are cookie dough with fudge and marshmallows, peanut butter, jelly, and pretzels, or lemon curd with cake and fresh berries. Let your imagination run wild!

• Sprinkles
• Finely chopped chocolate or candy bars
• Broken up cookies
• Cookie dough
• Fudge or chocolate ganache
• Pretzels (especially good with chocolate!)
• Granola
• Chopped or slivered nuts
• Peanut butter
• Cereal (think fruit loops, honeycomb, cinnamon toast crunch)
• Jam or jelly
• Fruit (fresh or semi-dried, like dates)
• Mini or chopped marshmallows
• Lemon or orange curd
• Crumbled up cake
• For vanilla, add 2 teaspoons extract

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