Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

in Ice Cream

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

My first batch ever of homemade ice cream. Rich, velvety, and vanilla-y.

As a child, we spent lots of our summers at my grandparents’ house, in a tiny, not-even-big-enough-to-be-on-the-map northeast Texas town. We started everyday with chocolate gravy for breakfast or homemade apple butter on toast. We spent the rest of the day playing with our cousins who lived near by or “working”: gathering and shelling pecans, feeding cows and chickens, harvesting vegetables, and snapping peas.

One of the best treats of summer is homemade ice cream. Grandma makes homemade ice cream out of snow that has fallen the previous winter. Her part of the state gets a few inches early in the year so she saves it and then turns it into dessert several months later. Snow ice cream is light and airy – almost like super-fine shaved ice.

The other side of homemade ice cream, “child labor law” ice cream, was a treat to enjoy but man, was it hard work! 20 years ago, grandma’s ice cream maker had the turn-crank – that meant we all took our turn at the handle. When one child’s arm tired, it was time to switch and he/she went to the back of the line.

I decided that after eating my mom’s homemade vanilla ice cream a couple of week’s ago that I wanted an ice cream maker of my own.

With the new ice maker at home and ice cream effortlessly churning away, I headed out to the grocery store to pick up a couple items. I impulse-purchased a pound of some of the reddest, juiciest strawberries… but the strawberries are another story.

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

Rich, velvety homemade vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk
  • 12 oz heavy cream
  • 1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk (we love Eagle Brand!)
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
  • Whole milk

Instructions

  1. Cream eggs, yolk, and sugars using a mixer. Add in the evaporated milk, cream, and condensed milk one at a time until well combined. Pour the mixture into the ice cream container, add whole milk up to the fill-line (typically about 2/3 full), and cover with the lid.
  2. Prepare your ice cream maker according to directions (layering the ice and rock salt). Remove the lid and insert the dasher at the last possible moment (doing this prevents ice or salt from getting into the mixture while you're setting up the ice cream maker). Operate the ice cream maker according to directions.
  3. Homemade ice cream is very soft-serve straight out of the machine. You'll want to cover it tightly and put it into the freezer. If you plan on folding any goodies in after the fact, say fresh strawberries (again... another story), reserve a couple of cups into a smaller bowl before putting into the freezer. The ice cream will harden completely in about 3 1/2 hours - I'd call it perfect in 2 1/2!

Notes

Yields: 2 quarts

Estimated time: 3 hours

11 comments… add one
  • Shawnda, you guys keep torturing me with these delicious ice cream recipes! It looks so good! 🙂

  • There is nothing in the world that tastes like your first homemade ice cream! There’ll be no stopping you now you’ve got the ice cream maker!

  • Maybe this vanilla ice-cream can be the best dessert!
    Yummy! 🙂

  • I’ve never seen a vanilla ice cream recipe with sweetened condensed milk. That has to be TASTY!

  • Another person making beautiful ice cream. UHHGGGG. And your scoops are so perfect. I so stink at making it even with my fancy smancy ice cream maker.

  • Julia

    Yum! Last summer we made homemade ice cream once with the machine we got as a wedding gift. DH wanted cookie dough ice cream but all the dough sank to the bottom. So we had to eat through 7 inches of vanilla ice cream to get to the rock of cookie dough at the bottom. Next time we will skip the mix ins!

  • Homemade ice cream is the best. I need to get my bowl in the freezer so I can make some more soon.

  • Now, this is strawberry ice cream for adults! It must be heavenly.

  • That looks perfect – and there is no ice cream better than perfect vanilla …sigh….

  • I just made my first homemade ice cream, too – French vanilla. Vanilla velvet is a perfect description for it 🙂

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